Edward  cM.  Knox 


Copyright,  1900 
by 

Cbe  ffiell  pubUsblns  Company 

45  Rose  St,,  New  York  City 


CO 

to 

cn 


l 


3?/"f 
/<7  7^ 


&be  Stor^ 


5  *  of^belbat 


4 

J. 

4 

4 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2017  with  funding  from 

University  of  Illinois  Urbana-Champaign  Alternates 


https://archive.org/details/storyofhatOOknox 


The  Story  of  The  Hat. 


“  Is  he  of  God’s  making  ?  What  manner  of  man  ?  Is 
his  head  worth  a  hat  ?  ”  Query  by  Rosalind  in 
Shakspere’s  “As  You  Like  It.”  Act  III.,  Scene  II. 

The  first  hint  of  hat-wearing  in  history 
occurs  in  the  Bible.  Turn  to  the  third 
chapter  of  the  book  of  Daniel  and  you 
will  find  it  recorded  that  Shadrach,  Me- 
schach  and  Abednego,  at  the  command  of 
that  cruel  Imperialist,  Nebuchadnezzar, 
who  afterward  became  a  beast  and  went 
to  grass,  were  thrown  into  the  fiery  fur¬ 
nace,  bound  in  “  their  coats,  their  hosen, 
and  their  hats.”  They  had  refused  to  bow 
down  in  worship  to  the  huge  image  of 
gold  which  the  king  had  set  up  on  the 
plain  of  Dura  in  the  province  of  Babylon. 

It  is  an  interesting,  yes,  an  inspiring 
story  and  its  moral  reaches  fresh  and 


6 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

strong  even  to  our  times ;  for  they  came 
out  of  the  “  burning  fiery  furnace  ”  all 
right,  as  all  men  will  who  do  not  worship 
gold. 

In  the  old  version  of  the  Bible  the  word 
hats  is  used  ;  but  a  lateral  note  gives  tur¬ 
bans  as  a  variation,  and  later  translation 
gives  mantles.  Hence  it  is  hardly  safe, 
scientifically,  to  assume  that  the  Hebrew 
historian,  or  myth-writer,  of  that  far-dis¬ 
tant  date,  meant  exactly  the  kind  of  head- 
cover  which  we  now  consider  and  call  a 
hat.  Probably  in  those  days  the  Jews 
wore  hoods,  if  civilians,  or  helmets,  if 
soldiers ;  just  as  their  cotemporaries  in 
Greece,  Italy  and  Britain  undoubtedly 
did  ;  or  they  may  have  worn  first  a  mantle 
to  protect  the  head,  as  the  Spanish  beauty 
in  our  day  uses  her  mantilla,  and  then,  in 
due  course  of  time,  through  Oriental  coun¬ 
tries,  the  simple  mantle  may  easily  have 
evolved  into  the  turban  many-folded  and 
compact. 

The  hat,  as  we  define  it,  distinct  from 


7 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

hood  or  cap,  is  a  comparatively  modern* 
creation  and  yet  its  exact  origin  and  date 
of  appearance  are  matters  of  grave  doubt : 
questions  unsettled  and  apparently  so  to 
remain.  The  Egyptians  wore  hoods  or 
thick  head-dresses,  often  curiously  elabo¬ 
rate  and  fantastic,  as  can  be  seen  to-day  in 
the  reliefs  and  mural  paintings  on  their 
tombs  and  temples ;  but  the  hat  proper, 
the  head-gear  of  definite  shape  with  a 
brim,  appears  to  have  been  unknown  or  at 
least  unused  by  them. 

One  would  naturally  imagine  that  in  a 
very  hot  country  about  the  first  thing  to 
suggest  itself  to  civilized  man  would  be  a 
sunshade  or  umbrella  and  that  this  would 
soon  modify  itself  into  a  brim  or  circular 
projection  of  the  hood  or  simple  head¬ 
dress.  But  this  apparently  is  not  the  case. 
Dampier,  the  English  pirate  and  author, 
in  his  “  Yoyage  Bound  the  World,”  pub¬ 
lished  in  1697,  notes  that  the  Chinese  even 

*  That  is,  in  comparison  with  the  civilization  of  Egypt 
and  India. 


8 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

at  that  late  day  had  no  hats,  caps  or  tur¬ 
bans.  “  When  they  walk  abroad,”  he  says, 
“  they  carry  a  small  uinbrello  wherewith 
they  fence  their  heads  from  the  sun  or  rain.” 

The  first  clear  trace  of  the  hat  appears 
not  among  Orientals,  but  among  the  an¬ 
cient  Greeks*  probably  of  the  Homeric 
age.  Certain  classes  of  Greek  citizens 
wore  caps  of  cloth  and  leather,  possibly 
too,  of  felt  and  the  shape  of  these  was  al¬ 
most  identical  with  the  fez  worn  still  by 
Greeks  and  Arabs  in  cities.  Artisans  and 
sailors  are  represented  thus  on  antique 
vases  and  soldiers,  too,  wore  them  under 
their  helms.  But  the  rich  and  urban 
Greeks,  as  a  rule,  went  bareheaded  and, 
except  when  a  cap  was  adopted  as  the 
badge  of  some  special  calling,  it  was  ap¬ 
parently  deemed  rather  effeminate  or,  at 
least  undignified,  to  go  capped. 

But  hunters  wore  a  hat  with  a  brim, 
which  the  Greeks  called  icir a<7o?f  and  the 

*  Doubtless,  also  Asiatics  or  half  so. 

|  Means  literally  “spread  out.” 


9 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

god,  Hermes,  (the  Mercury  of  the  Romans) 
is  generally  figured  with  a  hat.  In  a  later 
epoch  Greek  youths  took  to  sporting  the 
petasos  which  is  occasionally  depicted 


DOGSKIN  HELMET  PETASOS  WORN  BY  GREEK 

HAT  WORN  BY  SOLDIERS.  COPIED 

ROMAN  SOLDIERS.  FROM  ANTIQUE  VASE. 


with  a  brim  of  irregular  width  and  now 
and  then  with  a  brim  turned  up  so  that  it 
seems  the  veritable  antique  ancestor  of  the 
cocked  hat  of  last  century  such  as  Wash¬ 
ington  wore. 

Another  hat,  the  causia,  a  variation  of 
the  petasos  with  a  band  or  fillet  about  it 
and  long  ends  of  ribbon  flowing  behind, 
was  affected  by  the  Macedonian  Greeks; 


10 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

chiefly,  however,  as  an  emblem  of  high 
rank  or  of  sovereignty.  Here-  it  may  not 
be  unaptly  remarked  that  the  hat,  through 
all  ages,  has  been  a  sort  of  symbol  of  social 
superiority.  A  man  in  the  Middle  Ages 
was  known  by  his  hat,  as  he  now  is  by  his 
hatter.  But  Greek  Art,  for  the  reasons 
already  given  and  because  it  usually  ad¬ 
dressed  itself  to  the  depiction  of  the  un¬ 
dressed  or  nude,  naturally  gave  the  hat 
very  slight  consideration  or  representation. 
Possibly,  the  odd  phrase  “  Mad  as  a  hat¬ 
ter,”  originated  thus ;  inasmuch  as  Greek 
hat-makers  must  have  been  mad  because 
the  Greeks  bought  so  few  hats  and  thought 
so  little  of  them,  either  as  a  utility  or  an 
ornament. 

With  the  Eomans  it  was  very  much  the 
same.  A  fold  of  the  toga  served  the  pur¬ 
pose  of  covering  the  head.  The  priest¬ 
hood,  however,  wore  skull-caps  with  a 
point  sewed  on,  which  was  the  mark  of 
their  trade,  and  the  free  artisans  had  a  soft, 
cone-shaped  cap,  called  pileus,  as  the  em- 


11 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

blem  of  their  calling  and  condition.  When 
a  slave  was  freed,  one  of  the  legal  cere¬ 
monies  of  his  manumission  was  the  put¬ 
ting  of  this  pileus  on  his  head.  This,  as 


PETASOS  WITH  TURNED  BRIM 
TIME  OF  ALEXANDER. 


will  be  readily  inferred,  was  the  origin  of 
the  “  liberty  cap.”  The  shape,  however, 
was  different.  A  later  age  gave  to  the 
liberty  cap  its  peaked  top,  turned  or  droop¬ 
ing  forward. 

In  this  comparatively  hatless  epoch  of 
the  world,  the  Greco-Roman,  the  surround¬ 
ing  nations  wore  either  hard  helmets  in 
the  North,  or  in  the  East  and  South  a  tall 


12 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

soft  cap,  generally  tapering,  and  called 
mitra ;  from  which  it  is  believed  by  some 
that  the  mitre  of  European  bishops  was 
ultimately  derived.  This  point,  however, 
is  doubtful. 

Some  writers  on  this  highly  interesting 
theme  of  human  head-gear  do  not  feel 
sure  that  the  art  of  felting  which  appears 
to  be  a  necessary  concomitant  of  hat-mak¬ 
ing,  unless  we  suppose  the  first  hats  to 
have  been  plaited  from  straw,  was  known 
to  the  Greeks  and  Romans  before  the 
Christian  Era.  But  there  seems  to  be  suf¬ 
ficient  circumstantial  evidence  of  this,  al¬ 
though,  as  noted,  the  process  was  little 
practiced,  since  hats  were  not  common  or 
popular.  The  writers  who  hold  to  this 
doubt  maintain  that  the  art  of  felting  was 
introduced  into  Europe  by  the  Crusaders 
who,  they  sa^q  found  the  tents  of  the  Sar¬ 
acens  made  of  compressed  wool.  This 
might  be  “  true,  too,”  *  for  it  is  quite 

*  One  of  the  profoundest  suggestions  in  Shakspere’s 
works  which,  by  the  by,  are  peculiarly  rich  in  allusions 


13 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

within  bounds  of  belief  that  this  art  might 
have  lapsed  among  the  Greeks  and  Ro¬ 
mans  from  non -user,  especially  after  those 
nations  declined  into  decay  and  then  fell 
under  the  sway  of  Christianity. 

At  any  rate,  the  Roman  phrase  lana  co- 
acta,  compressed  wool,  which,  we  know, 
was  used  for  soldiers’  cloaks  and  for  the 
Lacedemonian  “  hats  ”  must  have  been 
something  exceedingly  like  felt.  In  lands 
where  Roman  Catholicism  is  paramount  it 
has  always  been  held  that  St.  Clement — 
Clemens  Romanus,  the  earliest  of  the  Ap- 

to  hats  and  style  in  head-gear,  is  that  passage,  King  Lear, 
Act  V.,  Scene  II.,  where  the  blind  Gloster  convinced  in 
his  own  mind  of  the  reasonableness  of  his  own  attitude 
toward  life,  and  meditating  suicide,  yet  assents  to  Ed¬ 
gar’s  counter  argument  as  containing  a  philosophy 
equally  true  and  pertinent ;  thus  indicating  that  appar¬ 
ently  contradictory  sets  of  facts  or  opinions  may  be  rec¬ 
onciled  or  have  equally  valid  standing  in  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  mind. 

Gloster.  No  further,  sir.  A  man  may  rot  e’en  here. 

Edgar.  What !  In  ill  thoughts  again?  Men  must  endure 
Their  going  hence,  e’en  as  their  coming  hither : 
Ripeness  is  all :  come  on  ! 

And  that’s  true,  too. 


Gloster. 


14 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

ostolic  Fathers,  who,  according  to  Euse¬ 
bius,  ruled  over  the  Church  from  91  to 
101,  A.  D., — was  the  inventor  of  felt.* 

The  fact  that  the  Hatters’  Annual  Fes¬ 
tival  for  centuries  has  been  holden  on  the 
23d  of  November,  St.  Clement’s  day  in  the 
Roman  Catholic  Calendar,  shows  a  general 
acquiescence  in  this  belief  among  the 
guild. 

Whether  this  is  to  be  accepted  as  his¬ 
tory  or  not,  at  least  it  appears  reasonably 
clear  that  the  introduction  of  the  hat,  as  a 
regular  piece  of  apparel  among  the  upper 
classes  in  Europe,  is  due,  in  no  small  meas¬ 
ure,  to  the  dignity  attached  to  the  hat  by 
Roman  Catholic  dignitaries  in  the  Middle 
Ages.  According  to  an  edict  of  the  fam¬ 
ous  Bishop  of  Dol  in  the  twelfth  century, 

*  The  legend  is  picturesque  and  worth,  at  least,  a  foot¬ 
note.  To  guard  his  feet  during  a  long  pilgrimage  the 
saint  put  carded  wool  on  his  sandals.  The  result  of  the 
friction  plus  the  alternate  dampness  and  warmth  during 
the  journey  pressed  this  loose  wool  into  fine,  firm  fabric; 
and,  having  a  good  understanding,  the  saint  thereby  di¬ 
vined  how  a  felted  cloth  suitable  for  cloaks  or  hats  might 
be  made. 


15 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

the  canons  of  the  Church  alone  were  al¬ 
lowed  to  wear  hats  and  if  anybody  else 
ventured  to  visit  church  thus  arrayed,  di¬ 
vine  service  was  to  be  suspended  till  the 
intruder  retired  or  was  forcibly  ejected. 

Thus  the  hat  came  to  figure  as  an  ensign 
of  honor  and  then  of  specially  religious 
eminence ;  for  just  a  hundred  years  later 
Pope  Innocent  IY.  ordained  it  as  the  sym¬ 
bol  of  a  Cardinal  and  bade  all  such  wear  a 
hat  of  red  in  all  ceremonial  processionals. 
This,  he  said,  for  like  many  others  of  his 
line,  he  was  of  a  turn  poetic,*  was  to  be 
“  in  token  that  they  were  always  ready  to 
spill  their  blood  for  Jesus  Christ.”  It  is 
from  this  that  the  adjective,  cardinal, 
meaning  a  certain  deep  shade  of  red  was 
derived;  and,  speaking  of  Cardinals  and 
poets,  an  apt  allusion  in  an  American 
poem  published  years  ago  in  The  Inde¬ 
pendent  comes  to  mind.  It  is  in  the  de¬ 
scription  of  a  late  September  sylvan  scene 
along  a  sluggish  river  and  the  poet  says : 

*  The  present  Pope  is  a  poet  of  no  mean  rank. 


16 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 


“  Where  Cardinal  flowers,  brave  priests  with  tongues  of 
fire 

Denounce  the  dulness  of  the  shadowed  stream 
Whose  amber  partly  mirrors  Heaven :  indeed, 

E’en  as  our  hearts,  where  many  a  vain  desire 
Broods  o’er  the  bright  brim,  like  a  river-weed.” 

In  “  Froissart’s  Chronicles  ”  there  is  a 
quaint  passage,  touching  the  time  in  ques¬ 
tion,  where  he  tells  how  the  Cardinals 
were  threatened  that,  unless  they  elected 
a  satisfactory  Pope  “  we  woll  maike  your 
heddes  reeder  (redder)  than  your  hattes.” 
But  the  scarlet  color,  we  learn  from  the 
same  Froissart  and  from  other  chroniclers, 
while  especially  emblematic  of  the  hat 
clerical,  was  not  by  fashion  limited  to  the 
clergy.  Such  of  the  laity  as  indulged  in 
hats  generally  affected  a  hat  of  red  which 
was  composed  of  “a  fine  kind  of  haire 
matted  thegither.” 

Turning  for  a  moment  from  considera¬ 
tion  of  the  hat  in  Europe  at  or  about  this 
epoch  to  contemplation  of  it  elsewhere,  let 
us  transcribe  a  couple  of  highly  pictur¬ 
esque  passages  from  Ruy  Gonzales  de  Cla- 


17 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 


vija,  who  was  Ambassador  from  the  King 
of  Castile  to  the  court  of  Timur  Beg,  or 
Tamerlane  the  Great,  as  he  is  generally 
known :  Timur,  the  Shepherd  who  became 


a  King !  Gonzales  left  Seville  in  May, 
1403,  and  reached  Samarkand  the  last  day 
of  August,  1404.  On  the  eighth  of  Septem¬ 
ber  he  was  presented  at  the  Court  of 
Timur,  where  he  met  the  Ambassador  of 


18 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

China,  the  other  end  of  the  then  known 
world  and  Gonzales  records  that  Timur 
gave  him  a  seat  above  the  Chinese  Ambas¬ 
sador — but  this  may  be  only  a  flamingo 
flight  of  Spanish  fantasy. 

“  Timur  Beg  wras  seated  on  the  ground 
in  a  portal  at  the  entrance  to  a  beautiful 
palace.  Before  him  was  a  fountain  which 
played  up  very  high,  and  tossed  up  in  its 
jets  were  some  red  apples.  The  lord  (mon¬ 
arch)  sat  cross-legged,  on  silken  embroidery 
amongst  round  pillows.  He  was  garbed 
in  a  robe  of  silk,  with  a  high  white  hat  on 
top  of  which  was  a  ruby  with  pearls  and 
precious  stones  about  it.” 

Later,  at  a  banquet  and  drinking-bout 
where  the  tables  and  the  jugs  were  of  gold 
and  the  cups  were  studded  inside  and  out 
with  emeralds,  pearls  and  turquoises  (one 
which  Gonzales  particularly  fancied  had  a 
ruby  “  two  fingers  broad  ”  in  the  heart  of 
it)  the  Emperor’s  wives  were  present,  un¬ 
veiled  ;  which  is  a  rare  compliment  to  a 
guest  among  Mohammedans.  Timur’s  chief 


19 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

wife  especially  attracted  the  Spaniard’s 
admiring  heed.  He  thus  described  her 
costume :  “  Her  robe  of  red  silk,  trimmed 
with  gold  lace,  was  long  and  flowing.  It 
had  no  waist  and  fifteen  dames  held  up 
her  skirts,  when  she  walked.  She  wore  a 
crested  hat  (head-dress)  of  red  cloth,  very' 
tall,  crusted  with  pearls,  rubies,  emeralds, 
etc.,  and  embroidered*  with  gold  lace.  On 
the  top  of  it  was  a  little  castle  on  which 
were  three  very  large  and  brilliant  rubies, 
surmounted  by  a  tall  plume  of  feathers. 
Her  very  black  hair — they  prize  black  hair 
above  all  other  shades — hung  down  over 
her  shoulders.  She  was  followed  by  about 
three  hundred  ladies,  and  when  she  sat, 
three  held  her  head-dress,  lest  it  topple  to 
one  side.” 

Timur’s  three  other  wives — Mohammed¬ 
ans  and  Americans  in  our  Sultanate  of  Sulu 
can  have  four  by  law — to  his  credit  be  it 
said,  were  gowned  and  hatted  with  equal 
gorgeousness,  and  to  amuse  his  guests 
Timur  ran  his  fourteen  favorite  elephants 


20 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

against  horses  and  professional  human  run¬ 
ners  which  was  a  “  diverting  spectacle.’’ 

Let  us  pause  a  moment  now  to  inquire 
into  the  origin  and  radical  significance  of 
the  word  hat.  Scholars  are  one  that  it 
comes  from  an  Anglo-Saxon  word,  haet, 
meaning  a  covering  for  the  head  or,  in 
fact,  a  hood,  which,  throughout  the  Middle 
Ages,  was  the  popular  wear,  but  since  the 
fifteenth  century  has  been  out  of  use,  ex¬ 
cept  in  some  very  primitive  out-of-the-way 
corners.  In  tongues  akin  to  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  the  word  is  similar  ;  German,  hiiten 
and  hut ;  Swedish,  hatt ;  Danish,  hoed ; 
Dutch,  hoeden  ;  all  with  the  underlying 
idea  of  a  guard  or  protection.  A  thimble, 
for  example,  in  German  is  called  a  finger- 
hut — a  finger-hat ;  because  it  fends  the  fin¬ 
ger  from  a  needle  prick.  Horne  Tooke  at¬ 
tempts  to  derive  the  word  from  “  hoved,” 
the  past  participle  of  the  verb,  heave  or 
heaf-an,  which  would  thus  make  hat  mean 
a  thing  heaved  or  raised,  as  the  head  is  on 
the  shoulders.  This,  then,  if  a  correct  sur- 


21 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

mise,  would  class  hat  and  head  and  hood 
and  hut  as  words  of  exactly  similar  origin 
and  primary  meaning. 

And  here,  though  this  little  book  is  con¬ 
cerned  chiefly  with  the  evolution  and  his¬ 
tory  of  the  hat,  it  seems  well  to  say  a  few 
words  on  the  hood,  the  hat’s  forerunner. 
Hoods  of  skin  and  leather  were  worn  in 
Northern  Europe  so  far  back  before  the 
Roman  Conquest  of  Gaul  and  Britain,  that 
no  date  can  be  even  guessed  as  to  their  be- 


HOOD  WORN  IN  BRITAIN  HAT  OF  PLEATED  CLOTH 


TIME  OF  CAESAR  TIME  OF  HENRY  I. 

ginning.  Sometimes,  probably  most  often 
at  first,  they  were  independent,  but  fre¬ 
quently  they  were  attached  to  a  cloak  or 
cape.  In  the  Middle  Ages  this  was  the 
distinctive  badge  of  artisans  and  workers 


22 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

in  the  field,  of  the  toiling  and  moiling  mil¬ 
lions.  In  some  regions,  warm  ones,  doubt¬ 
less,  as  a  rule,  this  head-cover  was  little  and 
of  light  stuff,  a  mere  cap ;  but  elsewhere 
it  was  so  large  and  heavy  as  to  seem  cum¬ 
brous  and  look  outlandish. 

This  latter  which  that  great  authority 
on  costume,  Mr.  Sturgis,  thinks  was  the 
hood  proper,  or  chaperon,  (chaperones,, 
nowadays,  are  often  equally  cumbrous  and 
outlandish)  in  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth 
centuries  had  a  cape  reaching  to  the  elbows- 
and  closing  in  front,  so  that  the  face  peeped 
out  through  a  slit  and  the  wearer  looked 
not  unlike  an  Esquimaux  or  Arctic  explorer 
of  the  present  day.  But  there  was  more 
than  one  style  to  the  hood-cape.  The  cape- 
part  was  twisted  sometimes  into  a  tippet 
and  wound  about  the  hood  turban-wise  and 
at  one  period  the  hood  was  made  prodi¬ 
giously  tall  like  the  hat  of  Timur  Beg’s  chief 
wife,  described  previously.  Under  these 
hoods  a  close  cap  had  to  be  worn,  if  the 
wearer  wished  to  keep  the  hair  smooth. 


23 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

It  is  easy  to  understand  why  the  hood 
held  out  so  long  against  the  hat  as  an  arti¬ 
cle  of  common  use  in  Europe.  The  hood 
could  be  made  with  ease  in  the  huts  of  the 
poor :  the  hat  demanded  a  skilled  labor. 
So  the  hat  during  that  period  was  the  out¬ 
ward  and  visible  sign  of  a  person  of  higher 
class  or  of  wealth;  one  who  rode,  not 
walked ;  one  who  could  travel. 

Perhaps  the  most  curious  hat  of  this 


epoch,  in  the  way  of  shape  is  the  by-cocket, 
of  which  an  illustration  is  presented  ;  but, 
though  fantastic,  isn’t  it  rather  picturesque? 
In  the  fifteenth  century  the  women’s  hats, 


24 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

among  the  upper  classes,  were  extraor¬ 
dinary  affairs  which  must  have  devolved 
upon  their  wearers  an  almost  crushing 
sense  of  responsibility  ;  but  in  the  succeed¬ 
ing  century  taste  became  less  fantastic, 
more  simple,  more  refined. 

Although  it  is  recorded  that  near  the 
middle  of  the  twelfth  century  a  “  hatte  of 
biever  was  worn  by  one  of  the  nobles  of 
the  lande  mett  at  Clarendon  ”  (clearly  it 
was  regarded  as  an  eccentricity  or  curios¬ 
ity)  and  although  Froissart  refers  to  the 
hats  and  plumes  worn  at  King  Edward’s 
Court  in  1340,  when  the  Order  of  the 
Garter  was  ordained,  yet  the  mass  of  evi¬ 
dence  goes  to  show  that  even  at  the  begin¬ 
ning  of  1400  in  Western  Europe  the  hat 
was  chiefly  used  by  men ;  and  by  them 
chiefly,  out  riding.  When  Charles  the 
VIE  of  France,  styled  the  Victorious,  who 
had  redeemed  his  country  from  the  grasp 
of  the  greedy  English,  entered  Rouen  in 
triumph,  1449,  “  he  had  on  a  hat  lined 
with  red  velvet,”  says  the  historian,  “sur- 


25 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

mounted  with  a  plume  or  tuft  of  feathers 
and  under  his  reign  the  use  of  hats  and 
caps  is  to  be  dated,  which  henceforward 


COMMON  MEN’S  HATS  IN  TWELFTH  CENTURY. 


began  to  take  the  place  of  chaperons  and 
hoods.” 

The  importance  of  the  hat  officially  is 
noteworthy  through  all  that  transition 
period  and  in  the  succeeding  century. 
Among  the  privy-purse  expenses  of  Henry 
YIIL,  one  of  England’s  most  typical  kings 
and  Englishmen,  is  an  entry,  1520.  “Peid 
for  a  hatte  and  plume  for  the  King,  in 
Boleyn,”  (not  Anne  Boleyn,  but  the  town 
of  Boulogne,  old  spelling)  “  twenty-five 
shillings.”  And  in  the  diary  of  King 
Henry’s  Secretary  is  a  note  of  a  “  Scarlett 


26 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

beever  hatte  ”  presented  to  the  King  on 
New  Year’s  day,  1543;  possibly  a  compli¬ 
mentary  hint  by  virtue  of  its  cardinal  color 
that  he  was  accounted  indeed,  what  he  had 
decreed  himself,  the  religious  as  well  as 
political  head  of  all  England.  They  knew 
how  to  pay  neat  compliments  in  those  bad 
old  days,  compliments  that  went  right  to 
the  head  and  heart,  like  wine  or  a  line 
brand  of  hat. 

Speaking  of  Cardinals,  in  Wolsey’s  in¬ 
ventory,  when  he  resigned  the  Great  Seal 
to  that  still  mightier  and  nobler  Catholic, 
one  of  the  noblest  men  who  ever  lived,  Sir 
Thomas  More,  there  are  five  hats  men¬ 
tioned  It  would  seem  curious  nowadays 
if  Mr.  Croker  should  be  forced  to  resign 
the  rule  of  New  York  to  Mr.  Platt  for  a 
brief  period,  to  have  him  give  up  five  hats 
or  even  one,  except  on  an  election  bet. 
Yet,  no  doubt,  his  official  hat  would  fit 
Platt  perfectly. 

At  this  very  scarlet  period  in  England’s 
official  history,  when  heads  went  to  the 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 


27 


MUFFIN  CAP  WORN  BY  EDWARD  VI., 
SON  OF  HENRY  VIII.,  COPIED  FROM 
HANS  HOLBEIN’S  FAMOUS  PICTURE. 


block  about  as  often  as  hats,  a  wonderful 
variety  in  fashions  prevailed.  Hats  were 
of  various  shapes  both  as  to  brim  and 


28 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

crown,  though  the  majority  of  brims  ran 
to  breadth,  “  sometimes  narrowing  a  little 
toward  the  back  and  a  little  bent  up  and 
scooped  in  front,”  says  one  authority.  So 
fantastical  the  fashions  again  became  to¬ 
ward  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century 
that  one  Master  Stubb,  a  satirist,  in  his 
“  Anatomie  of  Abuses,”  published  1585, 
dilated  as  follows : 

“  Sometimes  they  use  them  sharpe  on 
the  crown  of  theire  heads ;  some  more, 
some  lesse,  as  please  the  fantasies  of  theire 
inconstant  mindes.  Other  some  be  flat 
and  broade,  sometimes  on  the  crowne  like 
the  battlements  of  a  house.  Another  sorte 
have  rounde  crownes,  sometimes  with  one 
kind  of  bande,  sometimes  with  another, 
now  black,  now  white,  now  russed,  now 
redde,  now  greene,  now  yellow,  now  this, 
now  that ;  never  content  with  one  color  or 
fashion  two  daies  to  an  end.  And  as  the 
fashions  be  rare  and  strange,  so  is  the  stuff, 
whereof  their  hattes  be  made,  divers  also ; 
for  some  are  silk,  some  of  velvet,  some  of 


29 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

taffetie,  some  of  a  certain  kinde  of  fine 
haire ;  these  they  call  bever  hattes,  of  xx, 
xxx,  xl  shillings  price,  fetched  from  be¬ 
yond  the  seas,  from  whence  a  great  sort  of 
other  varieties  doe  come  besides ;  and  so 
common  a  thing  it  is,  that  every  servying 
man,  countrieman,  and  other,  even  all  in¬ 
differently  doe  weare  of  these  hattes.” 

Whether  the  satiric  flings  of  Stubb  and 
other  writers,  who  very  likely  were  envious, 
because  they  couldn’t  afford  more  than  one 
hat  per  lifetime,  and  so  had  to  talk  through 
it  at  everything  in  sight,  effected  any 
speedy  modification  in  the  taste  of  hat- 
wearers  or  hatters,  is  open  to  much  doubt. 
But  through  the  seventeenth  century,  in 
England  at  least,  fashion  in  men’s  hats 
grew  soberer  and  at  the  beginning  of  1700, 
the  crowns  of  hats,  which  were  mostly 
round,  were  made  much  lower  than  before. 
Possibly  men  had  grown  weary  of  wearing 
felt  and  fur  steeples,  which  must  have 
made  short  persons  frequently  look  ridicu¬ 
lous  or  as  if  under  an  extinguisher.  Then, 


30 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

too,  wig-wearing  necessarily  caused  a  cor¬ 
responding  change  in  the  style  of  head- 
gear.  But  after  the  crowns  had  been  cut 
down  the  brims  yet  remained  for  a  while 
disproportionally  broad,  not  unlike  those 
of  what  are  now  called  Quaker  hats,  until 
the  cumbrous  protrusiveness,  possibly,  sug¬ 
gested  to  some  man  of  fashion  the  idea  of 
turning  the  flap  up  and  pinning  it  back  in 
front.  This  was  quickly  followed  by  an¬ 
other  dandy,  who  went  the  first  reformer 
“  one  better  ”  by  turning  up  another  flap 
and  this  led  to  a  third  turn,  so  that  in  1704 
the  three-cocked  hat,  a  very  dashing,  pic¬ 
turesque  thing,  became  the  correct  style. 
Plumes  and  tufts  continued  still  to  be  worn 
by  a  few  men,  but  they  gradually  gave 
way — -place  aux  dames ,  as  it  were — till  the 
term,  fuss  and  feathers,  became  applicable 
to  the  head-dress  and  temper  of  one  sex 
alone. 

A  curious  point  of  commercial  history 
may  perhaps  be  rightly  noted  here  in  pass¬ 
ing.  The  Gentlemen’s  Magazine  for  1743 


31 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

states  that  Cardinals’  hats  were  then  made 
in  Great  Britain.  Considering  that  Eng¬ 
land  had  become  a  pretty  thoroughly 
Protestant  country  at  that  time,  this 
proves  what  a  long  stride  she  had  even 
then  taken  toward  her  long  manufacturing 
supremacy,  when  a  comparatively  small 
item  of  commerce  like  this  and  one  with 
contrary  religious  associations  could  be  in¬ 
cluded  in  her  industries. 

Toward  the  latter  half  of  that  century, 
a  round-edged,  flat-bottomed  and  full- 
brimmed  hat  came  into  vogue  and  common 
use,  and  the  cocked-hat  as  a  popular  thing 
was  “  knocked  into  a  cocked-hat.”  It  lin¬ 
gered  chiefly  as  a  mark  of  rank,  real  or  pre¬ 
tentious,  and  as  the  sign  of  a  soldier  ;  and 
in  the  last  quarter  of  the  eighteenth  century 
a  close  approach  among  men  of  fashion  to 
the  style  prevalent  at  present  took  place. 
One  writer  says  that  in  London  during 
the  last  decade  of  1700  a  cocked-hat  was 
a  very  rare  sight. 

At  various  periods  in  the  history  of  the 


32 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

hat,  as  worn  by  men,  who  have  always 
been,  by  the  by,  just  about  as  brim-iu\\  of 
vanity  as  women,  all  sorts  of  adornments 
have  been  superimposed  on  the  head-gear. 
Badges,  gold-bands,  and  silver  cords — 
mark  to-day  the  Mexican  greaser’s  som¬ 
brero  ! — loops,  rosettes,  plumes,  jewels 
even,  have  gleamed,  flared  or  flaunted  in 
evidence.  In  an  old  poem  satirizing  the 
Puritan,  who  was  ostentatiously  plain  in 
his  garb,  for  the  servile,  commercial  civil¬ 
ity  he  was  believed  to  possess  preemi¬ 
nently,  occurs  this  keen  and  striking  pas¬ 
sage. 

“  Oh  !  monstrous,  superstitious  Puritan, 

Of  refined  ways,  yet  ceremonial  man, 

Who,  when  thou  meet’st  one,  with  inquiring  eyes 
Dost  search ;  and,  like  a  needy  broker,  prize  * 

The  silk  and  gold  he  wears,  and  to  that  rate, 

So  high  or  low,  dost  raise  the  formal  hat.” 

But  among  highly  civilized  peoples  gew¬ 
gaws  are  no  longer  worn  by  average  men 
on  their  hats.  Metal  bands,  loops,  and 


*  “  Prize  ”  here  means  to  appraise. 


34 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

tassels,  to  be  sure,  are  still  used  in  the 
world’s  armies  and  navies  to  some  extent, 
as  designations  to  the  eye  of  the  rank  of 
the  wearer,  and  serving-men  in  livery  still 
are  marked  in  this  way.  A  contrast  of 
the  extremes  meets  here,  just  as  in  apparel 
otherwise  among  men ;  the  waiter  and  the 
gentleman  at  evening  ease  being  both 
garbed  in  a  dress-suit ;  which  occasionally 
at  entertainments  has  been  productive  of 
confusion  and  double-sided  embarrassment. 
This  reminds  me  of  an  anecdote.  The 
well-known  wit,  Edgar  A.  Jones,  once  re¬ 
quested  a  man  at  some  party  in  England 
to  bring  him  an  ice  or  a  light  or  something. 
“  Damn  you,  sir,  do  you  take  me  for  a 
waiter  or  a  gentleman  ?  ”  was  the  roared 
reply.  Jones  put  his  monocle  to  his  eye, 
coolly  surveyed  the  savage  Briton,  who 
was  about  twice  his  size,  up  and  down  for 
a  moment  and  then  in  suavest  tones  de¬ 
livered  this  caustic  rebuke :  “  Pardon  me 
for  my  tremendous  error.  I  see  now  that 
you  are  neither,  and  must  be  neuter.  No 


35 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

waiter  could  wear  such  an  ill-fitting  coat : 
no  gentleman  be  so  ill-natured  as  not  to 
smile  at  a  natural  mistake  and  try  to  re¬ 
lieve  another  from  the  embarrassment  of  a 
blunder.”  The  barbarian  was  on  the  point 
of  striking  his  rebuker,  when  some  one 
twitched  him  by  the  sleeve,  saying: 
“  That’s  Jones,  the  Joker.  Don’t  make  a 
sanguinary  ass  of  yourself,  old  man.” 
Then  he  made  a  bovine  effort  to  grin  and 
apologize;  but  Jones  confused  him  com¬ 
pletely  by  saying :  “  Not  a  word,  not  a 

word,  I  beg  of  you.  Accidents  will  hap¬ 
pen  in  the  best  regulated  Sunday-schools. 
Don’t  mention  it,  my  dear  young  man, 
but  don’t  let  it  occur  again  !  ”  and  then  he 
put  everybody  at  ease  by  telling  an  amus¬ 
ing  story  about  a  bibulous  fellow  who 
walked  off  with  his  hat  and  left  him  a  bet¬ 
ter  one  where  he  found  several  bank-notes 
hidden  in  the  sweat-band. 

One  anecdote  leads  to  another  and  of 
the  many  relating  to  hats  as  pleasant  as 
any  is  that  which  the  celebrated  English 


36 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

hatter,  Henry  Melton,  still  green  and  joy¬ 
ous  in  his  easy  eighties,  tells  on  himself 
and  how  it  determined  him  to  become  the 
greatest  hatter  in  the  United  Kingdom,  as 
he  certainly  was — a  veritable  artist  in  his 
business. 

One  spring  morning  in  youth,  while  he 
was  sauntering  along  the  gay  green  fields 
of  B&ttersea,  full  of  rebellion  at  the  idea 
of  his  father  putting  him  into  business,  for 
which  he  had  an  aversion,  he  was  startled 
from  his  rambling  revery  by  a  loud,  mock¬ 
ing  voice  on  the  other  side  of  the  hedge 
which  cried  out :  “  What  a  shocking, 

shocking  bad  hat !  ”  Looking  about  and 
over  the  hedge  and  seeing  no  one  but  a 
professional  bird-catcher  with  an  array  of 
cages  and  traps,  young  Melton  ruefully 
concluded  the  rude  criticism  must  be  aimed 
at  him  and  accordingly  took  off  his  beaver 
to  see  what  was  wrong  with  it.  Immacu¬ 
late  it  seemed  as  Avhen  it  came  from  its 
band-box.  He  stared  at  his  rustic  critic 
who  grinned  hugely  in  return  and  then, 


37 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

dismissing  his  irritation,  the  youth  rambled 
on.  Toward  evening,  however,  in  two 
other  places  he  was  greeted  with  the  same 
remark  which  made  him  uncomfortably 
suspicious  of  presenting  a  shabby  appear¬ 
ance  and  served  to  fix  his  mind  perma¬ 
nently  on  the  hat  per  se  as  an  eminently 
important  part  of  a  gentleman’s  attire. 
Ergo,  Melton  became  a  hatter  and  in  his 
day  probably  made,  more  hats  for  royal 
heads  and  for  men  of  note  than  any  man 
before  or  since.  Afterward,  however,  he 
found  out,  much  to  his  amusement  and 
satisfaction,  that  the  expression  which  had 
so  upset  his  juvenile  jauntiness  was  only 
one  of  those  peculiar  jests  which  every 
now  and  then  pervade  a  community,  as 
for  instance  in  the  eighties — “  What ! 
Never?”  “  Well,  hardly  ever,”  from 
Pinafore ;  or  that  equally  popular  query  : 
“  Is  this  hot  enough  for  you  ?  ”  And  the 
origin  of  that  salute  caustic  of  the  hat  he 
found  very  odd.  But  that  is  another 
anecdote.  It  appears  that  just  a  little 


38 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

while  before  in  that  locality,  Southwark, 
the  candidate  elected  (they  call  it  “  re¬ 
turned  ”  in  the  English  lingo)  was  the 
famous  reformer,  Mr.  Wilson,  a  hat  manu¬ 
facturer,  who  afterward  became  an  ac¬ 
knowledged  statesman  and  died  in  India, 
while  engaged  in  putting  the  finances  of 
that  country  on  a  safe  footing. 

This  Mr.  Wilson  had  in  his  employ  as  a 
political  canvasser  at  that  time  another 
hatter,  Mr.  Franks,  who,  by  the  by,  de¬ 
serves  more  than  “  honorable  mention  ”  for 
his  philanthropic  and  successful  labors  in 
calling  the  heed  of  his  country  to  the 
cruelties  in  the  coal-mines  of  Cornwall  and 
the  practical  enslavement  of  women  and 
little  children.*  Now  this  Mr.  Franks  was 
then  rather  a  smooth  politician  and  in 
canvassing  votes  for  his  friend  Wilson  (it 
would  never  do  of  course  for  a  Reformer 
to  offer  a  bribe  for  a  vote)  he  used  to  say 
to  each  elector,  when  he  called  at  the 

*  If  curious  on  this  theme,  get  a  book  entitled  “  The 
White  Slaves  of  England,”  from  any  first-class  library. 


39 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

house  :  “  Dear  me !  What  a  shocking, 

shocking  bad  hat  you  have  there !  Pray 
permit  me  to  send  you  one.”  Your  true 
Briton  has  many  faults,  but  he  likes  frank¬ 
ness  ;  indeed,  he  has  far  greater  respect  for 
the  man  who  abuses  him  than  for  the  ful¬ 
some  flatterer.  Mr.  Franks’ frankness  and 
his  little  attention  in  the  way  of  sending  a 
new  hat  “  caught  on  ”  and  his  principal, 
Mr.  Wilson,  was  triumphantly  “  returned.” 
But  this  politician  trick  naturally  was  de¬ 
nounced  by  the  losing  side  and  so  it  be¬ 
came  a  common  joke.  Men  greeted  each 
other  with  “What  a  shocking,  shocking 
bad  hat,”  and,  if  they  were  acquaintances, 
the  man  on  whom  the  salute  was  inflicted 
had  to  “  stand  treat.”  Extremes  meet. 
“How’s  your  poor  feet?”  was  another 
familiar  address,  by-word  or  “ catch”  in 
England  not  long  after  and  this  arose  from 
the  inquiry  of  the  riflemen  to  each  other 
after  the  cruelly  long  marching  and 
counter-marching  of  the  first  Brighton 
Review.  This  grew  into  “  a  universal  and 


40 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

most  surprising  sympathy,”  according  to 
one  writer,  with  everybody’s  pedal  ex¬ 
tremities  throughout  the  entirety  of  the 
United  Kingdom,  so  that  men  finally 
headed  it  off  by  saying,  when  they  met : 
“  Oh  !  they’re  all  right.  How’s  yours  ?  ” 

These  little  stories  have  side-tracked  us 
a  trifle,  but  not  much,  from  our  main  line. 
Yet,  in  fact,  when  writing  on  this  topic,  it 
is  rather  hard  to  avoid  lapsing  into  one’s 
anecdotage ;  such  a  multitude  of  pat  stories 
present  themselves. 

The  hat  that  has  held  its  own  most 
markedly,  since  hats  became  popular,  is 
unquestionably  the  beaver.  It  has  under¬ 
gone  many  mutations  and  had  many 
names,  but  its  general  shape,  beauty  and 
utility  have  persisted — a  survival  of  the 
fittest, — unmoved  by  abuse,  and  rising 
above  ridicule.  Many  nicknames  have 
been  fastened  upon  it,  cylinder,  funnel, 
stove-pipe,  plug, — it  has  triumphed  over 
all  and  still  to-day  holds  the  fort — or  the 


41 


42 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

head.  There  is  cause  for  this ;  more  than 
one  cause.  In  the  first  place  this  hat,  if 
properly  made,  is  the  least  irritating  to 
the  scalp  by  reason  of  the  ventilation  it 
allows.  Secondly,  though  not  primarily 
cheap,  when  made  by  a  good  hatter,  it 
wears  well ;  holds  its  form  and  style  and 
stands  re-blocking.  Thirdly,  it  is  more 
generally  becoming  than  other  hats.  And 
here  it  is  well  to  say  that  an  artistic  hat¬ 
ter,  if  he  enjoys  the  confidence  of  his  cus¬ 
tomer,  ought  to  tell  that  customer  when 
any  special  style  of  hat  misbecomes  the 
head  or  figure.  There  are  some  who 
never  ought  to  wear  beavers  and  some 
very  short  and  rotund  men  on  whom  flat 
hats  look  ridiculous.  To  hit  the  happy 
medium,  when  one  is  at  all  out  of  the 
ordinary  or  average  in  appearance,  is  a 
very  delicate  matter  and  the  hatter  should 
study  this  point  for  his  regular  customer 
who  may  not  have  the  time  or  taste  to 
evolve  it  for  himself. 

The  style  of  the  present  high  hat  is 


43 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

derived  from  that  worn  by  the  famous 
Earl  of  Essex,  favorite  of  Queen  Bess,  who 
was  the  first  to  trim  the  heavy  brim  of  his 
all-around  flapping  beaver,  raise  the  crown, 
and  give  it  the  air  of  elegance  and  dis¬ 
tinction  which  it  has  never  lost,  but  gained 
upon  through  the  years.  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh  adopted  this  and  by  force  of  his 
fame  made  it  even  more  fashionable. 
Since  then  this  hat  has  had  many  adven¬ 
tures  made  upon  it  in  the  way  of  shape 
and  material  of  composition,  as  the 
illustrations  will  sufficiently  indicate,  but, 
if  the  permanence  of  the  “  type  ”  be  a 
proof  of  original  excellence  in  hats,  as  in 
animals,  following  out  the  theory  of  Dar¬ 
win,  it  is  clear  that  this  kind  of  hat  came 
to  stay. 

In  regard  to  width  or  turn  of  brim,  as 
in  slope  or  curvature  or  height  of  crown, 
there  have  been  countless,  sometimes  al¬ 
most  playful,  variations  of  fancy  ;  but,  in 
due  course  of  time,  by  some  man  of  fash¬ 
ion  or  prince,  his  Royal  Highness  of 


44 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

Wales,  for  example,  the  hat  has  been 
quietly  brought  back  to  affinity  with  its 
primal  type.  “  Hats  will  throw  back,” 
remarked  Melton,  “  as  well  as  race-horses 
or  greyhounds,”  and  he  who  went  down  to 
Deptford  to  see  Ealeigh  embark  on  his 
caravel  for  that  last  brave  adventure  to  the 
Spanish  Main — now  no  longer  Spanish — 
might,  had  he  had  the  gift  of  Methuselah, 
have  seen,  two  centuries  afterward,  that 
“  glass  of  fashion  and  mould  of  form  ”  the 
delightful  Count  d’Orsay  caracoling  down 
Eotten  Kow,  crowned  with  a  hat  of  al¬ 
most  identical  shape  with  Kaleigh’s.  This 
Count  d’Orsay,  who  for  years  was  the 
setter  of  all  fashions  in  England  and  who, 
Lord  Byron  said,  was  the  only  thoroughly 
joyous  and  genial  dandy  he  ever  knew,  was 
more  particular  about  the  style  of  his  hats 
than  any  other  article  of  his  apparel. 

The  Count  gave  as  reason  for  this  that  the 
hat  is  the  crown  of  a  man’s  appearance. 
His  hats  varied  in  size  to  suit  his  coats.  If 
he  wore  a  light,  short  riding-coat,  his  hat 


45 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

would  be  smaller  in  all  ways  than  with  a 
thick  overcoat,  as,  for  instance,  with  the 
sealskin  coat  of  which  he  was  the  intro¬ 
ducer,  if  not  the  inventor,  and  which  has 
been  generally  discarded  since  then  by  men 
and  taken  up  by  the  fair  sex  in  jacket  forms. 
The  Count  also  held  that  a  hat  should  cor¬ 
respond  to  the  height  of  the  wearer.  “  A 
short  man  in  a  high  hat  is  out  of  propor¬ 
tion,”  he  used  to  say.  “It  dwarfs  him, 
just  as  long  hair  does  a  lady  who  is  petite." 
D’Orsay  never  had  less  than  fourteen  hats 
at  hand  for  use  and  often  as  many  as  forty. 
The  hat  in  the  illustration  of  this  famous 
personage,  an  illustration  made  originally 
from  Grant’s  magnificent  picture,  Aas  no¬ 
ticeable  for  the  thick,  ribbed,  broad  silk 
binding  and  a  band  tied  in  a  rather  large 
bow,  the  place  of  which  was  a  matter  of 
moment  with  its  wearer  who  held  that  the 
location  and  set  of  the  bow  gave  “  chic'”  * 
to  the  whole  hat.  This  beau  of  England’s 

*  It  was  d’Orsay,  I  believe,  who  introduced  this  word 
into  our  language. 


46 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

palmiest  days,  who  was  of  commanding 
height  and  fine  proportions,  always  wore 
his  hat  at  a  very  slight  angle  to  give  an 
air  of  gayety,  but  never  of  jauntiness. 
His  imitators,  the  Earls  of  Pembroke  and 
Chesterfield  and  a  host  of  lesser  lights, 
carried  this  inclination  to  a  ridiculous  ex¬ 
cess  and  got  themselves  properly  cari¬ 
catured  in  the  comic  prints.  But  there 
was  a  rival  faction  of  fashion  in  England 
at  that  epoch,  led  by  the  Marquis  of 
Anglesea,  popularly  nicknamed  “  The 
Magnificent,”  and  “  True  Blue.”  The  hat 
named  for  him,  still  seen  in  remote  dis¬ 
tricts  of  the  United  Kingdom,  was  par¬ 
ticularly  bell-shaped  in  the  crown  and  the 
brim  was  perfectly  flat.  This  was  a  fa' 
vorite  style  at  one  time  in  this  country  and 
was  called  “the  bell-topper.”  It  is  still  in 
use  on  the  stage  to  give  an  air  of  quaint¬ 
ness  to  the  parts  of  old  country  gentle¬ 
men.  It  is  said,  however  to  have  fitted 
the  bearing  of  Anglesea  himself  and  to 
have  added  to,  not  detracted  from,  the 


The  Story  of  The  Hat  47 

dignity  which  was  his  chief  character¬ 
istic. 

Another  odder  hat  once  popular  was 
that  invented  by  the  eccentric  Earl  of 
Harrington.  This  amusing  fellow  as- 


WELLINGTON.  ANGLESEA.  HARRINGTON. 


tonished  his  hatter  by  his  method  of  test¬ 
ing  the  quality  and  endurance  of  his  hats. 
He  stood  on  them,  and  if  they  stood  this 
treatment  without  a  dent  he  pronounced 
them  fit  for  his  head.  As  they  were  made 
of  the  finest  quality  of  beaver,  costing 
about  twenty -five  dollars  apiece  and  weigh¬ 
ing  never  less  than  twenty  and  one-half 
ounces  they  were  generally  up  to  his  re¬ 
quirements.  It  will  be  noticed  that  they 


48 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

were  remarkable  for  their  extreme  yeo¬ 
man-shaped  crown  and  square-cut  brim, 
turned  up  severely  at  the  sides. 

Another  of  Harrington’s  eccentricities — 
fads  we  should  term  them  now — was  his 
insistence  on  differences  of  color  to  suit 
different  occasions.  Many  odd  stories  are 
told  of  him,  of  which  this  is,  perhaps,  the 
best. 

A  friend  who  called  was  taken  out  to 
his  garden  where  the  Earl  was  pensively 
strutting  about,  crowned  with  a  sage-green 
hat.  Surprised  at  this,  the  friend  asked 
why  he  wore  such  an  outlandish  color. 
“  To  be  in  harmony  with  the  trees  and 
thus  not  frighten  the  birds,”  was  the 
Earl’s  grave  reply.  After  this,  who  shall 
say  that  the  English  are  not  a  very 
humorous  people — unintentionally  ?  There 
is,  however,  an  excellent  explanation  given 
for  Harrington’s  insistence  on  the  stiffness 
and  solidity  of  his  hats.  The  Earl  in 
youth  had  been  like  Nimrod  “a  mighty 
hunter”  and  once  had  been  flung  head 


49 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

foremost  on  a  rock.  The  hard  hat  he  hap¬ 
pened  to  be  wearing  had  acted  as  a  buffer 
and  saved  his  skull  from  fracture.  Hence 
his  lifelong  devotion  to  it.  Up  to  that 
time  the  hard  hat,  which  was  cheaper,  had 
been  considered  as  vulgar — a  shining  show, 
fit  only  for  grooms  or  post-boys.  Its 
vogue  is  believed  to  have  dated  from  Har¬ 
rington’s  preference. 

In  this  connection  may  be  added  an  in¬ 
teresting  anecdote  communicated  to  me 
by  Richard  Knight,  author  of  that  most 
delightful  and  original  of  modern  detect¬ 
ive  tales,  “  The  Haunted  Hat.”  An  eld¬ 
erly  German  named  Cullman,  who  got  a 
grant  of  Alabama  land  and  from  whom 
Cullman  County,  Alabama,  is  named, 
founded  a  German  colony  there,  which, 
when  Mr.  Knight  visited  the  place  in  1883, 
was  a  model  town  with  no  saloons,  two 
churches,  a  bucket-factory,  only  one  Amer¬ 
ican  and  one  negro,  and  not  one  poor  or 
discontented  man.  Cullman,  when  he 
started  his  colony,  was  looked  upon  with 


50 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

dislike  by  some  of  the  neighboring  “  poor 
white  trash,”  as  the  negroes  call  them,  and 
one  day  a  huge,  hulking  fellow  picked  a 
quarrel  with  the  old  German  and  stabbed 
at  him  downward  with  a  bowie-knife. 
The  hard  high  hat  worn  by  the  intended 
victim  deflected  the  murderous  blow  and 
it  only  chipped  out  a  Y-shaped  piece  of 
Cullman’s  frontal  bone,  missing  the  kind 
old  brain  The  assassin  fled  the  country ; 
but  Cullman  kept  the  piece  of  bone  and, 
when  familiar  with  a  visitor,  used  to  take 
it  out  of  a  silver  snuff-box  and-,  while  tell¬ 
ing  how  his  hat  had  saved  his  life,  would 
playfully  fit  the  fragment  into  the  deep 
dent  that  slightly  disfigured  his  fine,  phil¬ 
anthropic  forehead. 

Another  style  of  hat  which  contended 
for  popularity  with  the  d’Orsay,  the 
Anglesea,  and  the  Harrington,  was  the 
Wellington,  named  for  the  famous  “Iron 
Duke  ”  who,  with  Prussian  help,  defeated 
the  Great  Napoleon  at  Waterloo.  This 
was  rather  a  mean  between  the  extremes 


51 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

of  the  others,  moderately  straight  in  the 
crown  and,  though  curved  up  rather 
smartly  on  the  sides  of  the  brim,  not  of 
sufficiently  aggressive  appearance  to  look 


eccentric.  When  the  Prince  of  Wales  be¬ 
gan  to  take  a  hand  in  the  direction  of  the 
fashions,  he  first  set  the  seal  of  his  ap- 


52 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

proval  on  a  hat  straighter  in  crown  than 
the  Wellington  and  but  slightly  curved  in 
the  brim.  It  was  a  much  lighter  and 
more  juvenile  style  than  had  ever  been 
worn  in  England,  but  the  brevity  of  its 
brim  gave  it  an  air  of  levity,  when  above 

round  or  fat  faces,  and  it  cannot  be  com- 

\  7 

pared  for  elegance  of  proportions  and 
average  fitness  to  the  styles  in  prevalence 
recently.  Mention  of  the  Wellington  re¬ 
calls  the  curious  fact  that  Napoleon,  un¬ 
like  most  great  commanders,  was  notori¬ 
ously  careless  about  the  appearance  of  his 
head-gear.  ^  hat  of  his  that  used  to  be 
on  exhibit  as  a  relic  in  the  Louvre  was  a 
thing  of  no  quality,  shape  or  comeliness, 
an  outlandish  peasant-sort  of  slouch.  But 
while  he  was  this  way  in  dress,  the  bills 
incurred  by  his  wife,  Josephine,  are  said 
to  have  more  than  struck  a  high  average. 

Great  soldiers,  as  a  rule,  have  been 
rather  noted  for  their  hats.  Alexander  is 
represented  as  having  his  “  billy-cock  ”  or 
petasus,  turned  up  jauntily  at  the  brim 


53 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

and  young  Caracalla,  the  Roman  dandy 
Emperor,  was  joked  about  a  good  deal — on 
the  quiet — for  imitating  the  Alexandrine 
cock  in  his  hat  as  well  as  the  conqueror 
strut  in  his  walk.  Among  the  dandies  of 
those  days  the  hat  was  clearly  regarded 


ARM-HAT  HELD  IN  HAND  BY  LOUIS  XIV.,  OF  FRANCE, 
AT  HIS  MEETING  WITH  PHILIP  IV.,  OF  SPAIN,  l66o. 


more  as  an  ornament  than  a  utility,  for 
we  find  it  noted  as  a  custom  that  on  re¬ 
turning  from  a  ball  or  entertainment  the 
Roman  youths  wore  their  hats  and  bore 
their  slippers  on  their  arms,  just  as  country- 
girls  in  England,  France  and  very  old  set¬ 
tlements  in  America  may  be  still  occasion- 
ally  seen  carrying  their  shoes  to  church 
and  donning  them  at  the  door. 

The  chapeau  bras ,  or  arm-hat,  a  curious 


54 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

fashion,  probably  a  revival  of  the  Roman 
one  just  in  allusion,  was  for  a  while  ram¬ 
pant  in  England  and  as  recently  as  1860 
was  not  uncommon  in  some  parts  of  Eu¬ 
rope.  Melton  records  that  he  found  its 
use  lingering  among  some  elderly  beaux  in 
his  time  and  that  he  himself  made  one  of 
velvet,  lined  with  white  satin,  for  the 
Prince  Consort  who  used  it  at  parties.  It 
is  also  told  that  at  the  funeral  of  the 
Duke  of  York,  where  several  of  the  aged 
Bishops  and  peers  in  attendance  caught 
colds  resulting  in  sudden  death,  the  cele¬ 
brated  Lord  Eldon*  saved  his  own  life 
and  that  of  King  William  by  shrewdly 
setting  the  example  of  using  the  velvet  hat 

*  Eldon,  the  law-lord,  bitterly  immortalized  in  Shelley’s 
“  Masque  of  Anarchy.” 

“  I  met  Fraud  and  he  had  on, 

Like  Lord  Eldon,  an  ermine  gown. 

His  big  tears,  for  he  wept  well, 

Turned  to  mill-stones,  as  they  fell. 

And  the  little  children  who, 

Round  his  feet,  played  to  and  fro,  j 

Thinking  every  tear  a  gem, 

Had  their  brains  knocked  out  by  them.” 


55 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

he  carried  in  hand  as  Lord  Chancellor  for 
a  foot-mat ;  thus  keeping  his  feet  warm  in 
the  long  stand  upon  chilly  stones  in  the 
bleak  Abbey. 

The  odd  uses  to  which  men  have  put  hats 
have  been  partially  noted,  and  it  is  in  or¬ 
der  to  consider  the  especial  honor  in  which 
this  part  of  the  apparel  is  held.  Symbol 
of  devotion  unto  death  and  of  lofty 
rank,  it  becomes  the  distinctive  badge  of 
the  Cardinals,  the  Great  Princes  of  the 
Catholic  Church.  Mark  of  letters,  the 
trencher  of  the  collegian  and  the  ensign  of 
finished  learning,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Mas¬ 
ter  of  Arts,  it  stands  for  the  culture  of  the 
mind  as  well  as  the  heavenward  aspiration 
of  the  spirit.  Sign  among  the  Romans  of 
the  raising  of  a  serf  to  the  status  of  a  citi¬ 
zen,  in  its  humbler  form  of  cap,  it  offers 
itself  as  an  easily  understood  and  accepted 
token  of  the  march  of  practical  progress; 
in  a  word,  the  evolution  of  the  Brother¬ 
hood  of  Man.  As  an  expression  of  rever¬ 
ence  in  religious  matters  the  hat  cuts  a  fig- 


56 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

ure  both  ways ;  the  Christian  doffs  his  hat, 
the  Jew  puts  his  on,  in  their  respective 
churches  and  synagogues — Temples  to  the 
Same  and  One  Maker !  The  Quaker  fol¬ 
lows  the  Jew’s  example.  The  ancient  pa¬ 
gan  priests  of  Greece  and  Rome  wore  a 
head-dress,  when  officiating.  The  soldier 
salutes  by  touching  the  hat,  and  among 
civilians  respect  used  to  be  graded  in  the 
intercourse  of  men  with  each  other  by 
raising  the  hand  toward  the  brim,  by  touch¬ 
ing  it  with  the  forefinger  or  with  all  fin¬ 
gers,  by  tipping  it  forward  slightly,  by 
lifting  it  a  couple  of  inches,  by  taking  it 
off,*  by  lowering  it,  by  almost  sweeping 
the  ground  with  it  to  imply  profound  re¬ 
spect.  In  Spain,  poor  old  erroneous,  cere¬ 
monious  Spain,  the  hat  has  been  often  an 

*  A  charming  anecdote  is  told  of  Jefferson.  He  was 
riding  along  with  a  somewhat  consequential  companion, 
when  they  happened  to  meet  an  old  negro,  who  doffed 
his  hat  at  once.  Jefferson  gravely  uncovered  in  return 
and  wished  the  fellow  good-day.  “  I  am  surprised,”  said 
the  great  man’s  companion,  “  that  you  take  off  your  hat 
to  a  slave.”  “Would  you  have  me  then  his  inferior  in 
politeness  ?  ” 


57 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

essential  mark  of  distinction  according  to 
the  quality  of  its  texture,  the  shape  and 
the  incidental  ornamentation.  So  much  a 
thing  of  honor  is  it  that  in  many  houses, 
on  visiting,  one  finds  a  chair  set  apart  es¬ 
pecially  for  the  hat  to  sit  on. 

But  the  hat  has  been  made  to  convey 
disrespect  also  When  in  1866  a  certain 
society  in  Charleston,  S.  C.,  sent  the  Editor 
of  the  New  York  Tribune ,  Horace  Greeley, 
a  personage  noted  for  the  uncomeliness  of 
his  head-gear,  a  gift  of  a  hat,  it  was  meant 
to  hint  that  he  needed  something  new  “  to 
talk  through,”  on  the  subject  of  Southern 
outrages.  It  was  one  way  of  calling  the 
sage  a  voluminous,  long  distance  liar.  By 
law  in  Italy  and  France,  even  so  late  as 
the  reign  of  Louis  XIV.,  the  hat  was  made 
into  an  insulting  symbol  of  race-difference 
and  a  tab  of  degradation ;  Jews  were  com¬ 
manded  to  wear  yellow  hats  and  insolvent 
Jews,  green  hats.  Perhaps  here  was  where 
the  French  poet,  Baudelaire,  got  his  idea 
of  dyeing  his  hair  green  to  surprise  his 


58 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

friends.  He  was  certainly  insolvent  of 
brains,  when  he  did  so. 

One  of  the  first  patents  *  taken  out  for 
hats  used  by  the  gentry  was  that  of  Melton, 
I  believe,  for  a  Reversible  Shooting,  Fish¬ 
ing  and  Traveling  Hat.  This,  of  which  il¬ 
lustrations  are  given,  combined  a  cool  and 
porous  head-cover  on  a  hot  day,  and  a 
waterproof  one  in  wet  weather.  Fig.  1 
shows  the  hat  in  dry  weather,  made  of 
cloth  or  tweed  and  ventilating.  In  event 
of  rain  the  double  rim  at  the  edge  of  the 
black  brim  may  be  reversed  and  when  it  is 
brought  over  to  the  front,  the  hat  is  com¬ 
pletely  covered  with  japanned  waterproof¬ 
ing.  Figure  2  shows  this  cover  about  three- 
fourths  turned  so  that  the  reversible  part 
may  be  seen.  This  was  instantly  patron¬ 
ized  by  the  Prince  Consort  and  gained 
vogue  among  sportsmen  and  others  much 
out  in  the  open  air. 

*  Many  patents  were  taken  out  in  France  and  England 
for  waterproof  hats,  chiefly  for  use  by  sailors  and  porters. 
Dunnage  of  London,  in  1794,  got  one  for  waterproof 
beavers,  and  in  1802  Overbury  and  Jepsin  took  out  others. 


59 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

The  derby  is  a  modern  hat  which  owes 
its  vogue  likewise  to  the  same  princely  hat- 
fancier,  and  shortly  after  these  came  into 
general  favor,  his  Royal  Highness  intro¬ 


duced  the  innovation  of  having  hats  of 
this  kind  covered  with  the  same  plaid  as 
his  various  hunting  garbs,  and' these  made 
a  great  hit  among  the  sporting  fraternity 
of  England,  Scotland  and  Wales.  In  these 
hats,  however,  the  true  derby  shape  was 
modified  by  a  slight  flattening  at  top  of 
the  crown. 

During  the  sixties  a  sharp  discussion 
was  begun  in  the  press  and  has  been  re¬ 
vived  periodically  as  to  the  existing — and 
persisting — cylindrical  form  of  the  high 
hat.  Artists,  particularly,  who  have 
plunged  into  the  controversy,  generally 
have  reviled  this  form  as  lacking  in  pictur- 


‘60  The  Story  of  The  Hat 

esqueness.  But  the  question  holds  firm 
whether  picturesqueness  is  the  sole  object 
to  be  aimed  at — especially  in  masculine  at¬ 
tire.  Is  it  not  clear  that  the  modern  ten¬ 
dency  is  toward  what  is  unpretentious, 
easy  and  comfortable,  rather  than  what  is 
picturesque  and  cumbrous  ?  What  makes 
fashions  change  ?  Is  it  mere  whim  of  the 
public,  or  artful  intrigue  and  subtle  sug¬ 
gestion  on  the  part  of  merchants  ?  Is  it 
not  rather  some  point  of  utility  as  well  as 
elegance  that  suggests,  or  leads  up  to,  the 
change  ?  The  bicycle  is  invented  ;  youth 
and  age  of  both  sexes  are  attracted  by  the 
combination  of  healthful  exercise  and  play 
which  the  machine  offers.  What  results  ? 
A  return  on  the  part  of  the  male  to  some¬ 
thing  like  the  costume  of  last  century — 
short  trunks  and  long  socks ;  and  on  the 
part  of  the  female  to  an  abbreviated  skirt, 
a  more  easy  fitting  shoe  and  more  consid¬ 
eration  as  to  color  and  texture  of  hose. 

The  funnel-shaped  hat,  which  has  tri¬ 
umphed  over  that  most  potent  of  de- 


61 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

stroyers,  Ridicule,  has  a  reason  to  account 
for  its  triumph.  It  is  the  best  of  ventila¬ 
tors.  The  cause  of  so  much  baldness 
among  our  ancestors,  that  made  wig- 
wearing  the  fashion,  was  undoubtedly  the 


TIME  OF  CHARLES  II. 


cumbrous  head-gear  which,  causing  irrita¬ 
tion  of  the  scalp,  had  produced  a  race  of 
baldicoots.  Another  point.  The  black 
funnel  hat  is  more  in  keeping  with  our 
dress  than  the  plumed  hat  of  the  time  of 
Charles  II.  Think  how  absurd  a  man  in 
black  frock  and  grey  trowsers  would  look, 
if  he  topped  his  toilet  with  a  hat  like  this. 


62 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

Charles  Dickens,  in  his  magazine,  All 
the  Year  Rounds  inveighed  earnestly 
against  the  “tile.”  “What  Fiji,”  he  says, 
“  would  wear  our  black  hat  ?  What  abo¬ 
riginal  would  not  dance  on  it  in  sheer 
disgustful  contempt?  It  is  costly,  frail, 
lets  in  the  rain,  does  not  keep  out  the  sun,” 
(very  narrow  brims  were  then  in  vogue) 
“  attracts  the  wind,  is  unfit  to  travel  or  to 
sleep  in  ”  (he  must  have  been  thinking  of 
nightcaps  and  going  to  bed  with  his  boots 
on)  “  is  ugly,  uncomfortable,  cold ;  yet  it 
has  existed  now  in  full  fashion  for  some 
seventy  years  and  it  defies  all  reformation. 
Stupid  type  of  Chinese  changelessness  that 
it  is,  it  has  spread  all  over  Europe  and 
reigns  predominant  wherever  there  is  civ¬ 
ilization.” 

A  bright  indictment  this ;  but  analysis 
dims  it.  In  the  first  place,  the  high  hat  is 
not  an  expensive  article  of  one’s  dress  and 
was  not,  when  he  wrote.  Its  cost  in  a 
year  will  be  found  considerably  less  than 
that  of  any  other  part.  Second,  its  fragil- 


63 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

ity  is  entirely  optional.  It  can  be  made 
strong  as  tin  or  so  light  as  to  weigh  only 
twro  ounces.  Third,  it  doesn’t  let  in  the 
rain,  does  keep  off  the  sun  and,  when  the 
brim  is  made  wide  enough,  protects  the 
vision.  Its  height  may  attract  the  wind, 
but  its  rotundity  breaks  the  force  of  it; 


TWELFTH  CENTURY  FASHIONS. 


and  its  value,  in  the  way  of  ventilation, 
'what  critic  can  deny  ?  As  for  coldness,  of 
course,  in  deep  winter,  it  is  not  as  warm¬ 
ing  to  the  head  as  a  fur  cap  ;  that  can  be 
admitted,  but  as  to  its  being  uncomfort- 


64 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

able,  that  is  the  fault  of  one’s  hatter — sim¬ 
ply  and  solely  a  culpable  carelessness  in  the 
fit.  If  a  hat  is  well  fitted,  a  man  doesn’t 
know  he  has  it  on  till  he  takes  it  off,  as 
the  Irishman  says  in  his  “  bully  ”  fashion. 
The  fact  of  its  general  adoption  and  long 
reign — it  is  now  centennial — would  seem  to 
be  a  fair  proof  of  its  general  advantages 
and  merits. 

HSTo,  dear  Dickens,  you  were  a  great  and 
splendid  writer,  and  you  righted  not  a  few 
wrongs  in  your  day,  but  you  were  not  in¬ 
fallible.  Your  tilt  against  the  high  hat 
was  a  repetition  of  Don  Quixote’s  assault 
on  the  wind-mills,  and  your  indictment,  as 
to  substance  of  sound  sense,  reminds  one  of 
Phelim’s  dinner.  “  What  have  ye  for  din¬ 
ner  to-day,  O’Brien  ?  ”  “  Boiled  beef  and 

purtaties,  Phelim.”  “Ah — just  me  own 
dinner,  barrin ’  the  beef.” 

Would  any  of  the  “artistic”  denouncers 
of  the  “  chimney  pot  ”  like  to  have  us  go 
back  to  the  flaunting  foolscap  pomposities 


65 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

of  the  twelfth  century  such  as  those  exam¬ 
ples  on  page  63  from  Repton’s  Tapestries  ? 

Or  perhaps,  a  flaring  yellow  sugar-loaf, 
tricked  off  with  sky-blue  trimmings  like 
that  of  the  time  of  Edward  the  IY.,  would 


YELLOW  SUGARLOAF.  ANOTHER  OF  SAME  TIME. 

tickle  the  fancy  of  our  artist  friends.  Im¬ 
agine  our  court-jester,  Mr.  Chauncey 
Depew,  under  a  foolscap  extinguisher  of 
this  kind  or  of  the  companion  hat  with  its 
long  suggestive  goose-quill. 


66 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

Or  consider  the  napkin  hats,  which  had 
a  run  in  the  fifteenth  century. 

Would  even  our  waiters  care  to  be 
marked  as  a  class  by  such  uncouth  and 
ultra-comical  head-gear  ?  Or  the  muffin 
caps  and  hats  of  the  reign  of  Edward  VI., 
or  the  “  flat-heads  and  half  muffins  ”  which 
were  worn  in  the  hazy,  half-chaotic  six¬ 
teenth  century — who  votes  for  them  ? 

One  is  inclined  to  think  that  here  was  a 
reversion  of  type  to  the  buttoned  bonnets 
mentioned  by  the  great  narrative  poet, 
Chaucer. 

“  His  stature  was  not  very  tall. 

Lean  he  was.  His  legs  were  small, 

Hosed  with  a  stocken  red ; 

A  buttoned  bonnet  on  his  head.” 

In  that  same  century  the  battle  between 
hats,  (chiefly  of  beaver,)  and  caps,  which 
has  long  since  ended  in  a  victory  for  the 
blocked  hat,  appears  to  have  begun.  These 
by  virtue  of  superior  comfort  and  adapta¬ 
tion  to  climate  have  held  the  field,  Avith 
variations  of  shape,  until  foreign  influence, 


67 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

Highland  shooting,  and  a  general  loosen¬ 
ing  of  costume,  due  possibly  to  the  rapidly 
increasing  attendance  upon  and  interest  in 
collegiate  races,  restored  to  common  use 
the  comic  expansion  of  the  “  billy-cock  ” — 


NAPKIN  HATS  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY. 


the  pileus  (cap)  of  the  ancients,  and  the 
navvy’s  “  wide-awake.”  * 

The  “  wide-awake  ”  is  only  a  modern 
form  of  the  petasus  of  the  Greeks  or  an 
amplification  of  the  pileus.  This  was  fol- 

*  It  seems  to  be  a  fact,  although  savoring  of  joke,  that 
the  “  wide-awake  ”  was  thus  named,  because  it  never  had 
a  nap. 


68 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

lowed  by  the  invention  of  the  boating-hat 
of  straw ;  the  turban,  or  “  pork-pie,”  now 
entirely  lapsed  from  fashion ;  the  fishing- 
cap  with  solid  brim  and  flexible  head-case 
and  finally  the  close  round-crowned  felt,  or 
derby,  which  is  only  a  revival,  after  all,  of  a 
hat  current  in  the  twelfth  century,  as  the 
illustrations  on  page  25,  from  a  manu¬ 
script  in  the  Cambridge  Library  clearly 
show. 

Reference  has  been  made  to  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh,  one  of  England’s  greatest  char¬ 
acters,  as  an  early  wearer,  if  not  actual 
originator,  of  the  style  of  beaver,  chiefly 
affected  by  Count  d’Orsay  two  odd  cen¬ 
turies  after. 

It  appears  that  Sir  Walter  brought  over 
from  the  Low  Countries  the  idea  of  block¬ 
ing  or  shaping  firmly  the  hat,  which  was 
a  European,  not  an  English,  invention. 
Indeed,  it  is  noticeable  that  the  English 
are  not  an  inventive,  but  an  adoptive  race, 
quick  to  seize,  and  sometimes  to  improve 
upon  others’  ideas,  just  as  they  are  quick 


6b 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

to  seize  others’  lands,  when  they  dare  or 
can.  Wordsworth’s  Eob  Eoy  fits  the  case 
historically. 

“  The  good  old  rule  sufficeth  him, 

The  good  old  rule,  the  simple  plan : 

That  they  should  take,  who  have  the  power, 

And  they  should  keep,  who  can.’ 

But  an  even  greater,  and  far  more  typ¬ 
ical  Englishman  than  Kaleigh,  had.  pre- 


FRENCH  EIFFEL  TOWER  THE  PORKPIE.  A  REVIVAL 
HAT  OF  I4TH  CENTURY.  OF  THE  FEZ  IN  FORM. 

viously  gone  across  the  Channel  for  his 
hats.  That  royal  lady-killer,  Henry  VIII., 
whom  Froude  makes  out  a  great  states¬ 
man,  in  his  youthful  days,  like  the  present 
heir  to  the  English  throne,  was  as  partic- 


70 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

ular  about  his  hats  as  his  heart-affairs. 
One  of  his  foreign  hats  has  been  subject 
of  allusion  earlier  in  this  history  and  the 
only  thing  to  be  added  is  that,  probably, 
it  was  not  a  blocked  beaver,  though  it  may 
have  been.  Opposite  is  a  specimen  of  the 
shaggy  and  shapeless  beaver  in  use  about 
a  century  before  King  Henry  cut  off  his 
wives’  heads  and  founded  a  national 
church  on  the  purely  legal  right  of  divorce. 

But  the  beaver  hat  (or  cap)  dates  even 
further  back  than  this  most  frank  and 
honest  period  of  English  history ;  for  in 
the  chronicles  of  the  Abbey  of  Mandeville 
mention  is  made  in  monkish  and  very  bad 
Latin  of  certain  gifts  to  the  Abbot  in  883 
A.  D.  among  which  are  two  Roman  caps, 
one  (ex  cane  Pontico)  from  the  dog  of  the 
Pontic  Sea,  i.  £.,  the  barking  seal ;  the 
other  of  beaver,  trimmed  with  other  furs. 
Henry  III.  of  England,  in  his  long  reign 
of  peace,  had  a  little  cap  of  beaver,  with 
gold  band  and  set  with  precious  stones — 
doubtless,  a  gem  of  a  cap  in  those  days. 


The  Story  of  The  Hat  71 

The  Low  Countries  were  at  that  time 
the  seat  of  hat-manufacture.  Chaucer, 
the  charming  poet,  from  whom  quotation 
has  previously  been  made,  describes  the 
merchant — in  those  days  generally  his  own 


SHAGGY  UNBLOCKED  BEAVER 
OF  I4TH  AND  I5TH  CENTURIES. 

drummer  or  traveler — as  having  on  his 
head  a  64  Flaundries  (Flanders)  beaver 
hat.”  In  44 Much  Ado  About  Nothing” 
Shakespeare  puts  this  into  Claudio’s  mouth  ; 
44  He  brushes  his  hat  o’  mornings ;  what 
does  that  bode  ?  ”  That  he  was  a  gentle¬ 
man  particular  about  his  looks,  of  course, 
but  also  doubtless  that  his  hat  was  of 
beaver  and  needed  smoothing. 

The  blocked  beaver,  championed  by 


72  The  Story  of  The  Hat 

Raleigh,  made  such  head-way  in  popular 
regard  that  Queen  Bess  felt  constrained 
to  pass  an  Act  for  the  protection  of  the 
“  thrummed  ”  cap  trade,  which  manufac¬ 
ture,  originally  started  by  some  fugitives 
from  Flanders  in  the  time  of  the  Fourth 
Edward,  had  assumed  large  proportions. 
In  this  protection  of  established  industries 
the  chief  element  of  consideration,  how¬ 
ever,  was  probably  not  so  much  the  cap- 
trade,  per  se,  as  the  native  wool-grower ; 
who,  as  a  landed  proprietor,  Would  natur¬ 
ally  be  an  object  of  solicitude  to  a  paternal 
semi-feudal  government.  This  act,  13 
Elizabeth  c.  19,  was  passed  in  1571,  and 
it  ordered  that  every  person,  save  ladies, 
Jews,  etc.,  on  Sundays  and  holidays — 
there  were  many  of  the  latter,  then,  for  it 
was  still  Merrie  Englande — should  wear  a 
cap  of  velvet  wool,  made  in  England  by 
the  cappers,  under  a  penalty  of  three  shill¬ 
ings  and  sixpence  per  day.  This  curious 
tax  was  repealed  by  39  Elizabeth  c.  18. 
The  hat  had  begun  to  win  its  long  fight. 


73 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

Its  price,  however,  continued  high  and  so 
confined  its  use  for  a  century  chiefly  to 
the  upper  circles. 

In  the  time  of  Charles  II.,  1668,  date 
also  of  the  Great  Fire  of  London,  it  is 
quaintly  recorded  that  one  Giles  Davis,  a 
merchant,  offered  Timothy  Wade,  a  gen¬ 
tleman,  five  pounds  to  buy  a  beaver  hat 
.so  as  to  induce  him  to  surrender  a  lease  to 
a  certain  piece  of  ground.  This  costliness 
naturally  caused  imitation  and  substitu¬ 
tion  of  inferior  fur  and  thus  led  in  a  few 
years  to  a  lowering  of  price. 

A  History  of  Trade,  published  in  1702, 
contains  this  instructive  passage  :  “  About 
this  time  we  suffered  a  great  herd  of 
French  tradesmen  to  come  in, 'particularly 
hat-makers ,  who  brought  the  fashion  of 
making  a  slight  coarse-woven  commodity 
— viz — felt  hats,  now  called  Carolinas  ;  a 
very  inferior  article  to  beaver,  which  then 
sold  at  from  twenty-four  to  forty-eight 
shillings  apiece.” 

Thirty  years  later  we  find  the  London 


74  The  Story  of  The  Hat 

Board  of  Trade  in  behalf  of  London  hat¬ 
ters  complaining  bitterly  to  the  House  of 
Commons  about  the  extent  of  hat-making 
in  New  York  and  New  England.  In  con¬ 
junction  and  contrast  with  the  curious  at¬ 
tempt  by  Elizabeth  to  protect  English  hat- 
makers  from  foreign  competition  is  the 
fact  that  about  1500  it  had  become  a  regu¬ 
lar  custom  for  the  government  of  Worms 
to  send  annually  a  messenger  to  Frankfort 
with  a  felt  hat  as  a  symbol  of  petition  for 
release  of  customhouse  duties;  the  hat, 
like  its  humble  forbear,  the  cap,  thus  be¬ 
ing  a  token  of  liberty  desired  or  demanded. 
The  first  regular  hatters  (or  cappers)  in  the 
Middle  Ages  were  apparently  a  guild  in 
Nuremberg,  beginning  in  the  year  1360 
under  the  name  Filz-Kappenmacher — Felt- 
cap-makers.  Twenty  years  later  this  busi¬ 
ness  appeared  in  France  and  twenty -one 
years  after  that  in  Wurzburg,  Bavaria, 

For  the  further  encouragement  of  Eng¬ 
lish  hatters — an  odd  remedy  for  their  evil 
case — in  the  first  third  of  the  last  century 


75 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

the  government  proceeded  to  tax  hats  by 
making  every  seller  take  out  a  license. 
Then  it  decided  to  impose  a  stamp  which 
was  put  on  the  inside  of  the  crown  where 
a  maker’s  name  is  now  found.  If  a  man 
sold  an  unstamped  hat,  he  was  fined  ten 
pounds.  If  he  was  proven  to  have  forged 
a  hat-stamp,  the  punishment  was  death. 
Law,  in  those  good  old  days,  was  a  veri¬ 
table  Reign  of  Terror.  Naturally  such 
legislation  put  a  quietus  on  all  improve¬ 
ments  in  the  hat  business  for  years,  dimin¬ 
ished  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  beaver 
hats  in  England  and  ruined  the  foreign 
and  colonial  trade. 

The  advent  of  the  silk  hat  proper,  ac¬ 
cording  to  Melton,  was  about  the  year 
1822.  Made  of  long-napped  English  silk 
on  felt  bodies,  they  were  heavy  and 
clumsy  and  so,  he  says,  “  did  not  take 
among  the  upper  ten.”  In  1840,  the  pres¬ 
ent  style  of  silk  hats  was  brought  from 
France  and  Lyons  silk  of  the  best  quality 
was  used.  This  at  first  upset  the  hat- 


76 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

trade,  for  the  workmen  accustomed  to 
beaver  hat-making  did  not  take  kindly  to 
the  u  Frenchified 55  method;  but,  after  a 
while,  they  “  caught  on and  surpassed 
their  teachers  and  the  substitution  of  cot¬ 
ton  bodies  for  felting  was  a  great  improve¬ 
ment,  the  cotton  being  so  prepared  that, 
although  thin  and  light,  it  was  as  firm  as 
thin  board.  Thus  the  hats  were  not  only 
relieved  of  heaviness,  but  retained  their 
shape. 

English  rulers,  it  will  be  noticed,  have 
paid  extraordinary  attention  from  the 
start  to  the  hat  and  hat-business.  Some 
have  even  invented  as  well  as  given  coun¬ 
tenance  to  certain  fashions.  James  I.,  who 
among  other  eccentricities  tried  by  liter¬ 
ary  fulmination  to  blow  all  the  tobacco 
smoke  out  of  his  Kingdom  which  Kaleigh 
had  caused  there,  entertained  peculiar  ideas 
about  hats.  Here  are  some  of  them  which 
his  unlucky  courtiers  had  to  don,  or  doff 
royal  favor. 

Eighteen  years  before  this  learned  mur- 


77 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

derer,  James  VI.  of  Scotland  and  I.  of 
England,  the  worst  king  of  the  worst 
dynasty  England  was  ever  cursed  with, 
ascended  the  throne,  fashion  in  hats  had 
rioted  to  the  top  notch  of  the  fantastic. 

The  Elizabethan — or,  more  rightly,  the 
Shaksperean  Era — was  an  age  of  plumes ; 


STYLES  BROUGHT  FROM  SCOTLAND  BY  JAMES  I. 


an  age  that,  indeed,  had  no  small  reason 
to  plume  itself  on  its  magnificent  intellec¬ 
tual  expansion.  But  Stubbs  and  other 
satirists  were  paving  the  way  for  James' 
clipping  of  head-gear  by  denouncing  in 
unmeasured  terms  the  bright  and  feathery 
follies'  of  the  time.  “  They  are  content,” 
said  Stubbs,  “  with  no  hat  without  a  great 


78  The  Story  of  The  Hat 

bunch  of  feathers  of  divers  and  sundry 
colors,  peaking  on  the  top  of  their  heads 
not  unlike,  I  dare  say,  Cockes  combes,  but 
as  stemes  of  pride  and  ensigns  of  vanity ; 
and  these  fluttering  guiles  and  feathered 
flags  of  defiance  to  virtue  are  so  advanced 
in  England  that  every  child  hath  them  in 
his  hat  or  cap.  Many  get  a  good  living 
by  dyeing  them,  and  selling  them,  and 
not  a  few  prove  themselves  more  than 
fools  in  wearing  of  them.” 

The  Revolution  when  Cromwell,  the 
greatest  of  English  rulers,  took  the  helm, 
found  and  stamped  out  the  feather  fashions 
to  a  great  extent. 

The  Puritan  hat,  a  sufficiently  hideous 
affair,  was  merely  a  high-crowned  felt  un¬ 
blocked. 

When  the  Restoration  came  and  Charles 
II.  began  to  shed  the  light  of  his  ugly 
humorous  phiz  on  England,  the  Merry 
Monarch  issued  a  solemn  pronunciamento, 
laughing  in  his  sleeve  all  the  while,  ’tis 
likely,  as  to  the  shape  of  hat  and  coat  to 


79 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

be  worn  by  true  Britishers  till  the  day  of 
Judgment ;  and  his  brother,  James  II., 
amid  his  general  paucity  of  ideas,  had 
some  on  hats.  William  III.  not  only  rev- 


COMMON  PURITAN  HAT  AND  THAT  WORN  BY  ROBERT 
DEVEREUX,  LORD  ESSEX,  COMMANDER  OF  PURITAN 
ARMY,  FROM  PORTRAIT. 


olutionized  James’  deserted  Kingdom,  but 
the  national  head-gear,  to  boot.  Still,  he 
did  not  improve  it  much.  On  the  eighty- 
first  page,  from  Hogarth’s  immortal 
sketches,  are  some  samples  of  the  extra¬ 
ordinary  three-cornered  cocked-hats  with 
gold-lace  edges  which  gentlemen  wore  and 


80 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

sweltered  and  swore  under  in  the  reigns 
of  Queen  Anne,  George  I.  and  George  II. 
Are  they  not  comical  monstrosities  ? 
Who  would  seriously  advise  or  advocate  a 
return  to  such  opera-bouffish  trumpery  ? 
By  1760,  however,  one  of  the  most  un¬ 
couth  styles,  the  broad  flap,  had  vanished  ; 
the  flaps  having  been  turned  upward  tri¬ 
angularly.  Did  no  one  during  this  period 
recognize  the  grotesquery  of  these  be¬ 
spangled  piles  of  decorative  discomfort  ? 
Oh!  yes;  a  facetious  writer  in  1762  gives 
the  following  pictorial  comment.  “  Some 
have  their  hats  open  before  like  a  church- 
spout  or  the  tin  scales  they  weigh  flour  in ; 
some  wear  them  rather  sharper  like  the 
nose  of  a  greyhound  ;  and  we  can  distin¬ 
guish  by  the  taste  of  the  hat  the  mode  of 
the  wearer’s  mind.  There  is  a  military 
cock  and  the  mercantile  cock ;  and  while 
the  beaux  of  St.  James’  wear  their  hats 
under  their  arms,  the  beaux  of  the  Moor- 
fields-Mall  (a  region  similar  to  our 
Bowery  or  Tenderloin)  wear  theirs  diago- 


81 


82 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

nally  over  their  left  or  right  eye.  Sailors 
wear  their  hats  uniformly  tucked  down  to 
the  crown  and  look  as  if  they  carried  a 
triangular  apple  pasty  on  their  heads.  I 
hope  no  person  will  think  me  disaffected ; 
but,  when  I  meet  any  of  our  new  raised 
Infantry  wearing  the  buttons  of  their  hats 
bluff  before  and  the  trefoil  white  worsted 
shaking  as  they  step,  I  cannot  help  think¬ 
ing  of  French  figure-dancers.  A  man  with 
a  hat  larger  than  common  represents  the 
fable  of  two  mountains  in  labor ;  *  and  the 
one  edged  with  a  gold  binding  belongs  to 
the  brothers  of  the  turf.  With  Quakers 
’tis  a  part  of  their  faith  not  to  wear  a 
button  or  a  loop  tight  up  ;  their  hats 
spread  over  their  heads  like  a  pent-house 
and  darken  the  outward  man  to  signify 
they  have  the  inward  light.  Some  wear 
their  hats  with  the  corners  (which  should 
come  over  their  foreheads  in  a  direct  line), 
pointed  into  the  air ;  these  are  the  gawkies. 
Others  do  not  above  half  cover  their  heads ; 


*  Parturiunt  montes ;  nascetur  ridiculus  mus. — Horace. 


83 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

which  is,  indeed,  owing  to  the  shallowness 
of  their  crowns ;  but,  between  beaver  and 
eyebrows,  expose  a  piece  of  blank  forehead 
which  looks  like  a  sand  road  on  a  sur¬ 
veyor’s  plan.  Indeed,  people  should  hide 
as  much  of  the  face  under  their  hat  as  pos¬ 
sible,  for  very  few  there  are  but  what  have 
done  something  for  which  they  ought  to 
be  out  of  countenance.” 

Thirty  years  after  this  pleasant  satiric 


FRENCH  REVOLU-  ROUND  SLOUCH  FRENCH  REVOLU¬ 
TION  STYLE.  OF  FOX.  TION  STYLE. 


broadside  a  noticeable  improvement  of 
simplification  was  made.  The  wide,  use¬ 
less  buttoned-up  brims  were  pared  down, 


84 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

as  can  be  noted  in  the  illustration  of  the 
hat  worn  by  the  heroic  General  Wolfe. 

Besides,  the  round  slouch  was  introduced, 
and  was  worn  by  Pitt  and  Fox  to  whose 
particularly  shabby  hat  William  Austin, 
in  his  “  Letters  from  London  ”  published 
in  1803,  has  left  a  pleasant  reference. 

While  the  higher  crowned  hats  became 
appreciably  softened  in  outline  and  height,, 
their  smartness  was  still  often  emphasized 
by  gold  bands  or  tassels.  Two  of  these, 
one  with  ribbon  ornaments,  were  repro¬ 
duced  in  the  early  days  of  the  French  Rev¬ 
olution  and  found  a  considerable  but  not 
lasting  favor.  Here,  however,  it  is  well 
for  the  serious  investigator  of  human  head- 
gear  to  note  that  a  return  was  being  un¬ 
consciously  made  to  the  Raleigh  hat.  The 
absurd  superfluity  of  the  brim  has  been 
docked  ;  the  feather  has  been  plucked  out ; 
the  cocks  have  been  knocked  off  and  the 
lace  fringe  has  been  relegated  to  limbo. 

From  now  on  the  progress  becomes  clear 
and  rapid,  though  with  some  slight  diver- 


85 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

gences  into  vapidity,  such  as  the  ludicrous 
angularity  and  exaggerated  crescent  of 
brim  in  the  heyday  of  George  IV.,  and  the 
oddity,  though  not  ugliness,  of  that  style 
favored  by  the  Earl  of  Harrington,  to  the 
simpler,  but  perhaps  over-plain  fashion  of 
Anglesea  and  thus  to  the  cotemporary 
summit  of  taste  which  eventually  domi¬ 
nated  them  all  and  holds  fairly  firm  to¬ 
day,  the  design  of  that  inimitable  dandy, 
Count  d’Orsay. 

About  the  same  time  that  the  hat  got 
simplified  in  shape  and  color  and  denuded 
of  tinsel  ornamentation,  a  marked  im¬ 
provement  in  its  material  and  manufac¬ 
ture  took  place.  Fabric  softer,  equally 
strong,  yet  more  flexible,  began  to  be  used 
for  its  body ;  its  cover  was  woven  more 
closely,  of  a  richer  pile  ;  its  dye  was  made 
more  durable  and  capable  of  taking  on  a 
higher  polish. 

.Reference  has  been  made  to  the  great 
interest  in  hats  manifested  by  many  Eng¬ 
lish  rulers  and  no  history  of  the  hat  would 


86 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

be  complete  or  just  which  did  not  admir¬ 
ingly  chronicle  the  taste  and  practical 
judgment  shown  by  that  amiable  gentle¬ 
man  who. was  the  husband  of  Queen  Vic¬ 
toria.  The  Prince  Consort,  as  he  was 
called,  was  a  man  of  marked  simplicity, 
though  extreme  elegance,  in  his  tastes'.  In 
public,  through  the  summer,  he  usually 
wore  a  hat  of  drab  felt,  for  which  he  paid 
two  guineas.  In  his  gardens,  however,  he 
always  wore  a  Panama,  which  in  those 
days,  according  to  the  fineness  of  the  plait, 
ranged  in  price  from  twenty-five  to  two 
hundred  and  fifty  dollars.*  But  it  was 
the  fate  of  this  Prince,  who,  as  a  foreign 
husband  of  the  Queen,  was  peculiarly 
studious  to  avoid  giving  offence  to  the 
English  by  any  appearance  of  interference 
in  state  affairs — it  was  the  singular  fate  of 
this  unusual  Prince  to  raise  a  perfect  storm 
in  England — a  tempest  in  a  hat.  This, 
too,  by  an  act  of  real  benevolence.  Not 

*  Rich  Mexican  planters  have  b^en  known  to  pay  even 
as  high  as  $300  for  a  hat  of  this  kind. 


87 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

long  after  his  transplantation  into  Ham¬ 
let’s  mad  island  of  exile,  the  Prince  had 
occasion  to  wear  one  of  the  military  hats 
then  in  style  of  which  an  illustration  is 


general’s  hat,  1850. 

WEIGHT  25  OUNCES. 


given.  This  absurd  and  ugly  thing  had  a 
uniform  weight  of  twenty-five  ounces.  It 
is,  as  any  one  can  see  with  half  an  eye, 
both  heavy  and  clumsy.  Taking  a  prac¬ 
tical  hatter  into  confidence  and  counsel, 
the  Prince  evolved  a  marked  improve¬ 
ment  which  weighed  only  eleven  and  a 
half  ounces.  Lightness,  smallness,  com¬ 
fort,  were  his  aim.  When  this  General’s 
hat  was  finished,  he  submitted  the  matter 


88 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

to  the  Duke  of  Wellington  and  Welling¬ 
ton,  anxious  to  have  a  finger  in  this  pie  of 
military  reform,  and  being  of  a  very  eco¬ 
nomical  turn  of  mind  (the  accidental  con¬ 
queror  of  Napoleon  was  a  sad  skin-flint) 
advised  that,  instead  of  the  rich,  gold  loop, 
a  bullion  twist  should  be  substituted  and 
for  the  rich  gold  tassel  of  the  Prince’s  de¬ 
sign  he  offered  a  somewhat  cheaper  and 


prince  Albert’s  improvement 

ON  THE  GENERAL’S  HAT. 

far  less  shapely  one.  The  saving  this  in¬ 
volved  was  comparatively  slight  and  in 
consideration  of  the  high  rank  of  the  offi¬ 
cers  and  the  small  number  of  hats  required 
the  Duke’s  improvement  was  absurd. 


89 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

But  the  Prince  had  no  choice  save  to  ac¬ 
cept  the  “  amendment.”  The  result  was 
that  the  nation’s  jealousy  was  aroused  and 
the  press  teemed  with  charges  of  insolent 
interference  on  the  part  of  the  foreigner 
and  accusations  of  stinginess.  But  the 
storm  at  last  subsided  and  the  English, 


OLD  SHAKO. 


coming  to  their  senses,  recognized  the  vast 
improvement  which  a  foreigner  of  taste 
could  make  among  them,  if  he  had  a 
chance,  like  the  Prince  Consort.  He  then 
set  his  mind  toward  simplifying  the  shako, 
which  at  that  time  weighed  twenty-four 


90 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 


ounces.  The  one  he  proposed  weighed  ten 
and  it  was  not  adopted,  but,  as  a  sequel  to 
his  agitation,  the  French-shaped  shako 
weighing  seven  and  a  half  ounces  came 
into  use ;  not  so  handsome  a  hat  as  that  of 
the  Prince’s  invention  and  more  “foreign” 
but  possibly  more  serviceable  and  conven- 


ALBERT  SHAKO. 


PRESENT  SHAKO. 


ient.  This  reformatory  Prince  also  brought 
into  fashion  a  very  pretty  and  serviceable 
hat  for  deer-stalking,  a  favorite  pastime  of 
his.  This  was  made  of  a  misty  mixture  of 
shepherd’s  plaid,  which  resembles  the 
black-and-white  stone  so  common  in  the 
Highlands  of  Scotland  arpl  thus  is  calcu¬ 
lated  not  to  arrest  the  keen  vision  of  the 


91 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

deer  and  put  him  to  flight.  The  shape  is 
that  of  the  Y enetian  period,  the  back  brim 
turning  down  in  wet  weather  and  guard¬ 
ing  the  neck  from  rain. 

Before  parting  with  Victoria’s  excellent 
husband,  it  is  impossible  to  refrain  from 


PRINCE  ALBERT’S  DEERSTALKING  HAT. 

relating  a  delightful  story  of  a  famous  hat¬ 
ter  to  whose  book  much  is  owing  by  the 
author  of  this,  although  it  contains  a  few 
singular  mistakes.  Sir  Edwin  Landseer, 
the  noted  animal  painter,  was  commis¬ 
sioned  to  do  a  life-size  of  the  Prince’s  fa¬ 
vorite  dog,  Eos.*  It  was  decided  to  repre¬ 
sent  Eos  as  on  guard  over  his  master’s  hat 
and  gloves  reposing  on  a  foot-stool  or  cush¬ 
ion.  Sir  Edwin,  wishing  to  be  realistic  in 


*  A  Greek  word,  signifying  Dawn. 


92 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

reproducing  these  stage-properties,  sent  to 
Mr.  Melton  for  a  hat  of  the  Prince,  which 
was  furnished.  Now  listen  to  Mr.  Melton’s 
deep  wail  of  advertising  woe :  “  Sir  Edwin 
introduced  it  into  the  picture,  placing  it 
easily  on  its  side  on  a  cushion  and  showing 
nearly  half  the  inside  of  the  lining.  Had 
the  hat  luckily  been  placed  just  an  inch 
more  horizontally,  the  crown  would  have 
displayed  my  name  as  ‘  Hatter  to  his 
Royal  Highness,’  and  thus  rendered  me  an 
incalculable  service,  without  prejudicing 
the  picture  in  the  least  degree.  But  Fate, 
or  the  artistic  fancy,  decreed  otherwise.* 
When  I  remind  mv  readers  that  the  en- 

t J 

graving  of  this  charming  picture  has  had 
an  almost  unprecedented  popularity,  the 
importance  of  my  suggestion  can  be  readily 
estimated.  .  .  .  Assuredly,  a  great  error, 
a  most  unartist-like  proceeding  and,  indeed, 
an  almost  unpardonable  neglect  in  our  pre- 
Raphaelite  age.  I  understand  from  good 

*  Mr.  Melton  evidently  had  a  classic  mind,  for  this  re¬ 
calls  Virgil's  famous  Dis  aliter  visum. 


93 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

authority  that  Mr.  John  Everett  Millais, 
It.  A.  paints  from  a  brick.  Assuredly  a*n 
artist  should  do  justice  to  a  “tile.”  And 
then  to  cap  the  climax,  Mr.  Melton  criti- 


EOS,  FROM  SIR  EDWIN  LANDSEER’S  PICTURE. 


cises  Sir  Edwin’s  counterfeit  presentment 
of  the  Prince  Consort’s  hat  as  dispropor¬ 
tionate  ;  “  out  of  drawing  ” ;  and  from  a 
study  of  this  famous  picture  one  is  inclined 
to  admit  that,  in  this  point,  the  hatter  has 
the  great  painter  decidedly  on  the  hip. 


94 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

The  pictured  hat  is  really  not  quite  true 
to  the  style  of  the  original. 

About  fifty  years  ago,  the  sound  sense 
of  the  Prince  Consort  having  percolated  at 
last  into  many  English  heads,  his  advanced 
ideas  on  the  subject  of  hat  ventilation  were 
taken  up  by  several  hatters  to  the  advan¬ 
tage  of  the  community,  and  a  man  named 
Ellwood  patented  a  double  hat,  with  a 
space  between  the  outer  and  inner  body 
and  with  little  perforations  all  around  un¬ 
der  the  brim  so  as  to  produce  a  perfect  and 
constant  current  of  air.  The  sale  of  this 
cool  hat,  which  had  cost  the  hatter  who 
exploited  it  a  large  sum  to  produce,  “  hung 
fire.”  What  is  new,  however  excellent,  is 
apt  to  suffer  from  slowness  of  approval, 
and  the  greater  the  excellence,  the  smaller 
is  often  the  amount  of  immediate  appreci¬ 
ation.  This  applies  to  heads  as  well  as 
hats.  A  Balzac  spends  years,  nearly  all 
his  life,  before  he  succeeds  in  achieving 
popular  acceptance ;  while  some  trumpery 
novelist  who  treads  in  beaten  tracks  and 


95 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

never  lias  a  single  new  idea  lives  in  ease 
and  imagines  himself  one  of  the  Immortals. 

The  ventilator  hat  went  slow  until  the 
exploiter  conceived  the  happy  plan  of  giv¬ 
ing  it  a  pompous,  mysterious  name.  Call¬ 
ing  in  a  scholarly  friend  to  his  aid,  he  con¬ 
cocted  the  word  “  Aleckephales-Kepasteer,” 
which  is  Greek  and  signifies  “  Head-pro¬ 
tector  from  the  heat  of  the  Sun.”  The 
trick  won.  Men,  seeing  it  advertised,  be¬ 
came  curious  as  to  what  such  a  hat  could 
possibly  be  and  also  how  to  pronounce  its 
outlandish  title.  They  flocked  to  see  it, 
and  trying  it  on  pronounced  it  a  good 
thing.  The  Emperor  of  the  French,  Na¬ 
poleon  the  Little,  who  having  lived  much 
in  London  was  more  than  half  an  English- 
p  man,  took  a  great  fancy  to  this  new  hat 
and  gave  it  the  stamp  of  his  approval. 
Large  quantities  were  shipped  to  India 
and  there  it  soon  evolved  into  the  pith-hat 
or  Indian  helmet  hat,  which  is  at  once 
comfortable  and  becoming  in  a  tropical 
climate. 


96 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

Not  long  after  this  invention,  a  French¬ 
man  devised  an  umbrella-hat  which  pro¬ 
voked  only  ridicule  in  Paris.  So  he  tried 
it  on  London  through  a  friend  in  the  hat- 
trade.  This  was  a  very  simple  affair ; 
merely  an  exceedingly  light  umbrella  with 
a  handle  about  nine  inches  long  which 
fitted  with  a  screw  into  the  centre  of  the 
crown  of  a  stiff  hat.  In  merely  wet  or 
bright  weather  it  answered  its  purpose 
admirably,  but  if  the  day  were  also  gusty, 
it  was  likely  to  cause  amusement  to  spec¬ 
tators,  for  its  wearer  had  to  tack  about 
like  a  human  ship  to  prevent  this  umbrella 
taking  flight  along  with  the  hat.  Some, 
however,  liked  the  hat  for  use  in  still  fish¬ 
ing  or  for  reading  in  the  open  air,  and  as 
recently  as  1889  I  saw  one  of  these  old 
patents  in  active  service  in  this  country. 

It  now  comes  in  order  to  say  a  few  words 
on  the  subject  of  ladies’  hats  which,  about 
the  same  time,  began  to  displace  the  bon¬ 
net  ;  the  bonnet  being  merely,  in  essence, 
a  variation  on  the  old  cloth  hood.  It  is. 


The  Story  of  The  Hat  9'< 

noteworthy  that  through  all  the  fantastic 
changes  in  men’s  head-apparel  woman  has 
more  than  kept  an  equal  pace  with  man. 
When  men’s  hats  were  widest,  and  weight¬ 
iest,  women’s  were  still  more  strange  and 
towering.  On  succeeding  pages  are  some 
illustrations  of  what  ladies  sailed  under  in 
the  days  of  the  Tudors  and  still  earlier. 


STYLE  IN  LAST  DAYS 
OF  HOUSE  OF  YORK. 


When  a  soberer  taste  began  to  show  it¬ 
self,  the  style  affected  by  women  became 
still  plainer  than  that  of  the  men.  The 
straw-bonnet  of  our  grandmothers  even 
strained  plainness  at  times  almost  to  the 


98 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

point  of  ugliness  in  shape,  little  relieved 
and,  indeed,  rather  accentuated  by  the  ad¬ 
dition  of  lace  and  artificial  flowers.  In 
the  forties,  however,  when  the  feather  and 
plumes  were  things  of  the  past  in  male 
costume,  an  English  lady  began  to  devote 
her  attention  and  artistic  skill  to  the  com¬ 
position  of  fancy  hats  in  felt,  straw  and 
velvet ;  and  fine  feathers  for  fine  feminine 
featherless  bipeds  came  with  a  bound — and 
boundlessly — into  fashion.  Every  kind  of 
bird  from  the  dazzling,  darting  warbler  or 
the  modest  low-flying  sparrow  to  the  tall 
flamingo  or  the  soaring  hawk,  was  made 
to  contribute  wings,  tails,  breasts,  or,  in 
the  smaller  species,  whole  bodies,  stuffed 
and  generally  set  in  strained  positions,  to 
the  adornment  of  lovely  woman’s  head. 
Such  was  the  bewildering  variety  of  birds 
in  use  that  a  salesman  in  a  hat-shop  had  to 
have  not  only  a  pretty  good  memory,  but 
no  small  ornithological  knowledge,  in 
order  to  tell  a  customer  just  what  kind  of 
bird  or  feather  she  was  buying  on  her  hat. 


99 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

An  amusing  story  is  told  of  this  time. 
A  lady  of  title,  one  of  the  sort  who  are  al¬ 
ways  on  the  lookout  for  monstrosities  in 
the  way  of  fashion,  entered  a  hatter’s  and 
desired  to  be  shown  a  hat  which  was 
unique  and  could  not  possibly  be  duplicated 
by  any  other  woman.  A  monster  with  a 
wondrously  dyed  and  flaunting  feather 
was  brought  forth.  She  greatly  admired 
it  and  inquired  the  price.  “  Fifty  pounds.” 
Rich  as  the  lady  was,  it  staggered  her  a 
little  and  she  expressed  surprise ;  where¬ 
upon  the  saleswoman  began  to  expatiate 
on  the  rarity  of  the  feather  as  offering  a 
happy  medium  of  convincing  the  customer 
of  its  value ;  but  not  being  a  very  fluent 
orator  the  saleswoman  got  confused  and 
commenced  to  stammer  and  flush.  The 
proprietor,  noticing  this,  flew  to  the  rescue 
and  gracefully  ousting  his  subordinate, 
while  taking  the  cue  as  to  rarity,  began  to 
explain  that  there  wasn’t  another  feather 
like  it  in  all  England  and  might  never  be 
again  for  many  years,  inasmuch  as  the 


100  The  Story  of  The  Hat 

bird  was  one  of  the  scarcest  in  the  world 
and  oh  account  of  its  peculiar  habits  al¬ 
most  as  impossible  to  shoot  as  an  American 
loon.  “  But  what  is  this  feather  and 
what’s  the  bird’s  name  ?  ”  suddenly  queried 
the  lady.  “  Madam,”  he  said,  completely 
at  his  wit’s  end,  for  he  hardly  knew  a  hawk 
from  a  hernshaw,  when  it  came  to  the  pinch, 
“  Madam,”  he  repeated,  rolling  up  his  eyes 
and  lowering  his  oily  voice  to  an  impress¬ 
ive  stage-whisper,  as  if  the  secret  were  be¬ 
ing  dragged  out  of  him,  u  This  is  the  wing 
of  a  diving  peacock.”  Delighted  and  as¬ 
tonished,  the  dame  apologized  for  her  ig¬ 
norance  and  took  the  hat  at  once. 

While  in  the  vein  anecdotal  concerning 
English  hatters,  one  is  tempted  to  refer  to 
the  system  of  long  accounts  with  fashion¬ 
able  customers  which  used  to  prevail  in 
England  and  to  some  extent  still  obtains. 
Tradesmen,  especially  in  the  hat-trade, 
were  heavily  handicapped  by  this  usage. 
To  press  for  a  bill  meant  often  to  give 
great  offence.  Months,  years  frequently, 


The  Story  of  The  Hat  101 

rolled  by  with  large  bills  apparently  no 
nearer  to  settlement  than  when  contracted, 
An  old  joke  from  Punch  illustrates  this. 
“  I  must  withdraw  my  patronage  from 


HORNED  HEADDRESS.  TIME  OF  HENRY  IV. 


Dunning,”  says  young  Frank  Dash. 
“Why,  what  has  he  done,  Frank?” 
Frank’s  brother  asks,  “  Oh !  he  has  as¬ 
sumed  a  hostile  attitude :  he  has  actually 
asked  for  his  money”  Indeed,  so  fearful 
were  some  tradesmen  of  angering  the 
gentry  that,  after  a  while,  they  would  go 
through  the  form  of  bankruptcy  so  the 


102  The  Story  of  The  Hat 

sums  due  could  be  collected  without  any 
apparent  application  on  their  part ;  and 
there  was  one  firm  which  made  a  practice 
of  only  sending  in  accounts  to  dead  men, 
i.  e.,  to  the  executors  of  its  debtors’  es¬ 
tates.  Melton  tells  a  delicious  anecdote  of 
one  London  gentleman’s  method  of  set¬ 
tling.  To  a  patron  who,  he  supposed, 
would  pay  him  at  least  once  a  year,  he 
sent  a  bill  at  Christmas.  No  heed  being 
paid  to  this,  at  Easter  the  hatter  sent  a 
clerk  with  a  duplicate.  My  lord  received 
the  humble  envoy  politely  ;  but,  pointing 
to  his  desk,  expressed  some  irritation  at 
Melton’s  “  impropriety  ”  in  expecting  him 
to  “  disturb  the  regularity  of  his  file.” 
“When  my  accounts  reach  the  top  of 
that,”  he  said,  blandly,  “  I  begin  to  pay 
them  off  in  regular  order  by  easy  stages 
so  as  not  to  weary  myself  in  well-doing. 
If  a  bill  comes  in  early,  you  see,  it  must 
get  paid  late,  for  it  is  low  down  on  the 
file.  This  too,  fulfills  the  Scripture  that 
the  last  shall  be  first  and  the  first  last.” 


103 


The  Story  of  The  Hat 

The  clerk,  duly  impressed  by  such  holy 
business  methods  on  the  part  of  a  noble, 
cringed  away.  It  was  another  year  be¬ 
fore  the  hatter  received  his  money,  from 
which  it  may  be  inferred  that  the  cus¬ 
tomer  had  a  pretty  long  file — and  was  a 
pretty  keen  one. 

The  early  mention  of  the  hat  in  our 
literature  is  noticeable.  Chaucer  has  been 
cited,  but  even  before  him  in  the  old  poem 
“  Pier’s  Ploughman  ”  there  is  reference  to 
a  merchant  wearing  a  hat.  Shakspere  is 
particularly  copious  in  allusions  to  hats. 
Master  Slender  in  “The  Merry  Wives  of 
Windsor”  swears  by  his  hat:  a  good 
proof  in  what  high  esteem  or  reverence 
the  hat  was  then  held.  Claudio  in  “  Much 
Ado  About  Nothing  ”  is  noted  for  “  brush¬ 
ing  his  hat  o’  mornings  ”  which  allows  a 
fair  inference  that  beaver  was  then  in  wear 
or  coming  into  fashion.  Beatrice  in  the 
same  play  remarks :  “  He  wears  his  faith 
but  as  the  fashion  of  his  hat :  it  ever 
changes  with  the  next  block,”  which  in- 


104  The  Story  of  The  Hat 

dicates  how  capricious  was  fashion  in  that 
day.  In  u  All’s  Well  That  Ends  Well”  the 
Clown,  describing  the  advent  of  Bertram 
and  his  retinue,  exclaims  “  Faith,  there’s  a 
dozen  of  them,  with  delicate  fine  hats  and 
most  courteous  feathers  which  bow  and 
nod  at  every  man.”  Grumio  in  “  Taming 
of  the  Shrew  ”  refers  to  a  servant’s  hat ; 
Vincentio  alludes  to  a  copatain*  hat; 
Biondello  describes  Petruchio’s  servant  as 
wearing  “  a  old  hat  and  the  humor  of  forty 
fancies  pricked  in  it  for  a  feather.” 

That  jewels  as  well  as  feathers  were  dis¬ 
ported  in  men’s  hats,  when  Shakspere 
lived,  appears  from  the  Third  Lord  in 
“  Timon  of  Athens  ”  who  says  :  66  He  gave 
me  a  jewel  the  other  day  and  now  he  has 
brat  it  out  of  my  hat.”  Coriolanus  is 
made  by  Shakspere  to  speak  of  taking  his 
hat  off  in  order  to  curry  favor  with  the 
mob ;  but  this  is  probably  a  mistake  his¬ 
torical  on  the  part  of  the  poet,  since  a 
Roman  of  the  time,  stamp  and  age  of 

*  Means  high-raised  or  pointed. 


The  Story  of  The  Hat  105 

Coriolanus  would  not  be  likely  to  have 
worn  a  hat.  Mrs.  Page  in  “  The  Merry 
Wives  of  Windsor,”  when  urging  Falstaff 
to  escape,  bids  him  put  on  a  hat,  a  muffler 


WHAT  A  MERRY  WIFE  OF 
WINDSOR  MAY  HAVE  WORN. 

and  kerchief,  and  there  is  also  reference  in 
this  play  to  a  u  thrummed  ”  hat  which  was 
a  shaggy  sort  of  wool  cap,  worn  by  com¬ 
mon  people  and  covered  with  the  ends  of 
yarn  called  thrums.  Ophelia,  when  66  mad 
as  a  hatter  ”  sings  — 

“  How  should  I  your  true  love  know 
From  another  one  ? 

By  his  cockle-hat  and  staff 
And  his  sandal  shoon.” 


106  The  Story  of  The  Hat 

This  was  probably  a  ditty  old  in  Shaks- 
pere’s  time  and  transplanted  by  him  into 
the  play  as  a  piece  of  nature ;  for  the  refer¬ 
ence  is  to  days  when  persons  went  on  re¬ 
ligious  pilgrimages  and  wore  a  cockle  or 
shell  in  the  hat  as  a  sign  of  their  errand. 
That  the  ancient  Britons  wore  no  hats, 
except  when  going  into  battle,  when  they 
wore  nothing  else,  seems  to  be  a  well  estab¬ 
lished  fact ;  and  that  the  ancient  Greeks 
wore  hats,  besides  the  helmet,  which  is  a 
kind  of  a  hat,  appears  clear  from  the 
“ Works  and  Days”  of  Hesiod,  a  poem 
written  for  “  the  agricultural  interest.” 
Hesiod,  describing  the  proper  dress  for  a 
farmer  in  raw  weather,  says, 

“  Then  for  the  head  a  pilon,  wrought  with  care, 

Both  ears  enclosing  cautiously  prepare ; 

For  piercing  are  the  morning  winds  that  blow 

From  the  chill  north  and  drive  the  hosts  of  snow.” 

Strutt,*  an  authority  on  ancient  cos¬ 
tumes,  speaks  of  the  pilon,  or  pileus  of  the 
Romans,  as  a  woolen  cap  sometimes  worn 

*  Strutt’s  “Ancient  Habits,”  Introduction,  p.  95. 


The  Story  of  The  Hat  107 

as  a  lining  to  the  helmet.  We  have  no 
absolutely  overwhelming  proof  that  the 
Greeks  had  discovered  the  art  of  felting 
much  before  the  Christian  Era ;  but  the 
likelihood  is  large  that  the  brimmed  hat 
or  petasus  which-  Alexander  the  Great 
favored  and  made  fashionable  for  ages 
among  Greek  and  Roman  youth,  was  of 
felt ;  and  Pliny  who  flourished  in  the  first 
century  of  Christianity  which  he  reviled 
as  “  an  extravagant  superstition  ”  has  a 
minute  account  of  the  process  of  felting 
which  renders  it  evident  that  the  attribu¬ 
tion  of  the  invention  to  St.  Clemens  must 
be  taken  very  largely  on  faith  ;  if,  indeed, 
at  all  seriously.  To  be  sure,  it  may  have 
lapsed,  may  have  become  a  dead  art,  to 
be  revived  by  the  sensible,  practical  saint 
who  may  have  felt  that  a  multitude  of 
sins  might  need  to  be  covered  by  a  good 
stout  hat  as  Avell  as  by  charity.  Evi¬ 
dently  the  hat  was  not  in  common  use 
among  the  Romans,  was  not  countenanced 
by  custom  and  was,  perhaps,  regarded  as 


108  The  Story  of  The  Hat 

tending  to  effeminacy  or  dudishness;  for 
it  is  of  record  that  Caligula  by  a  special 
edict  only  let  people  wear  the  petasus  at 
the  theatre  to  shade  their  eyes  from  the  sun. 
But  the  ancients  wore  a  much  more  primi¬ 
tive  hat  than  the  pilon  or  pileus  of  which 
an  illustration  on  page  nine,  taken  from 
Choul’s  Castramen  des  Anciens  Romans, 
gives  an  idea.  This — Cudo  it  was  called — 
was  made  of  the  undressed  skin  of  a  wild 
animal ;  very  likely  among  the  early  Ro¬ 
mans  of  wolf-skin,  since  the  wolf  was  their 
national  emblematic  animal,  as  the  lion  is 
England’s,  and  the  eagle  ours.  Probably 
the  home-made  fur  hats  or  caps  of  our 
western  trappers  tally  closely  with  this 
early  Roman  type.  In  the  sculptures  on 
Trajan’s  Pillar,  some  of  the  Roman  sol¬ 
diers  are  figured  as  wearing  the  whole 
skin  of  an  animal,  the  face  glimpsing  be¬ 
tween  the  upper  and  lower  jaws  and  the 
body  skin  hanging  down  over  the  back. 
Gatlin’s  drawings  of  our  American  Indians 
exhibit  a  similar  thing,  the  braves  wearing 


The  Story  of  The  Hat  109 

the  hide  and  horns  of  the  buffalo.  The 
Roman  galea  was  originally  a  helmet  hat 
made  of  hide,  fitting  more  or  less  closely 
round  the  skull  with  slits  for  the  eyes  and 
sometimes  with  a  flap  covering  the  front 
of  the  nose.  The  Greek  helmet  was  gen¬ 
erally  made  of  dog-skin  at  first,  as  the  name 
of  it  shows,  but,  afterward,  among  both 
races,  it  was  made  wholly  of  iron  or  brass. 

The  petasus,  of  which  an  illustration  on 
page  nine  taken  from  an  antique  vase 
and  representing  a  Greek  soldier  gives  a 
good  average  idea,  varied  greatly  in  shape  ; 
perhaps,  according  to  the  occupation  of  the 
wearer. 

Frequently  it  was  a  mere  skullcap  with 
a  narrow,  but  stiff,  brim.  Sometimes  the 
brim  was  very  large  and  presumably  more 
flexible,  corresponding  to  the  Spanish  or 
southern  slouch.  The  petasus  is  worn  still 
by  husbandmen  in  Greece  and  Asia  Minor. 
Roughly  speaking,  it  may  be  said  to  have 
been  the  hat  of  shepherds,  travelers  and 
hunters.  Three  kinds  of  petasus  are  men- 


110  The  Story  of  The  Hat 

tioned  by  ancient  authors,  the  Arcadian, 
(farmers’  or  shepherds’)  the  Thessalian 
(hunters’  probably)  and  the  Laconian, 
which  may  have  been  the  more  cosmo¬ 
politan  or  travelers’  kind ;  but  one  has  no 
present  means  of  knowing  the  exact  differ¬ 
ences  of  these  hats. 

The  causia,  classifiable  as  a  petasus  of 
rank,  since  it  was  the  hat  affected  by  Mac¬ 
edonian  Kings,  and  by  nobles  with  regal 
permission,  generally  was  ribboned  or 
filleted,  but  not  always,  as  the  illustration 
on  page  eleven  shows. 

The  brim  of  this  turned  up,  instead  of 
down,  and  that  it  must  have  been  com¬ 
posed  of  a  stiff  fabric,  some  sort  of  felt, 
seems  beyond  question.  This  is  the  hat 
Alexander  wore  and  which  the  Roman 
dude  Emperor,  Caracalla,  assumed,  under 
an  illusion  that  he  was  a  second  Alex¬ 
ander,  or  Alexander  himself  reincarnate. 
The  mark  in  the  top  of  this  suggests  that, 
with  the  ancients,  the  idea  of  ventilation 
was  just  as  dominant  as  it  was  in  the  wise 


The  Story  of  The  Hat  111 

head  of  Queen  Victoria’s  husband.  Strabo 
writing  about  15  A.  D.  refers  to  the  hats 
of  the  Persians  as  “  felt-made  and  like  a 
tower.”  The  Persian  hat  to-day  is  the 
same.  The  ancient  Lycians  wore  hats 
with  feathers,  not  unlike  those  current  in 
the  days  of  Louis  XIV.  Pome’s  ancient 


RICHLY  EMBROIDERED  COWL-SHAPED 
FEMININE  HEADDRESS  OF  l6TH  CENTURY. 

priesthood — it  is  noted  among  the  Institu¬ 
tions  of  Numa — wore  a  kind  which  was 
very  likely  the  progenitor  of  the  bishop’s 
mitre.  It  was  called  the  apex ;  a  hat 
coming  to  a  point,  stiff  and  bodied,  either 


112  The  Story  of  The  Hat 

of  hide  or  felt.  Sacredness  attached  to 
this  hat  as  to  the  scarlet  crown  on  the 
Cardinal.  Sulpicius  was  degraded  from 
the  priestly  rank  because  his  apex  fell  off, 
while  he  was  offering  a  sacrifice. 

Remains  now  to  consider  an  ancient 
head-covering  which  has  persisted  with 
little  or  no  change  of  form  to  modern 
times.  The  cucullus  (cowl),  was  worn  by 
slaves,  and  by  shepherds,  who  were  gen¬ 
erally  slaves,  as  many  farmers  are  to-day  of 
the  mercantile  or  moneyed  classes.  This 
humble  headgear  was  adopted  by  the 
lowest  order  of  Christian  priests  or 
monks,*  supposedly  in  order  to  identify 
them  with  the  common  people  and  in 
token  of  that  practical  brotherhood  of 
man  which  the  Greatest  of  Masters  sought 
to  preach  and  teach  by  shining  example. 

Did  Christ  wear  a  hat?  The  question 
is  proposed  with  the  greatest  reverence, 

*  The  old  proverb,  “  Cucullus  non  facit  monachum  ” 
for  “the  cowl  makes  not  the  monk”  occurs  to  memory 
here. 


The  Story  of  The  Hat  113 

and  not  in  any  light  or  reckless  way,  for 
the  sake  of  sensation.  Unquestionably  the 
Jews,  living  in  a  tropical  country,  wore 
something  of  the  sort  and  we  have  the 
testimony  of  Daniel  to  that  effect.  But 
there  is  no  mention  in  the  New  Testament 
of  this  thing  and  is  it  not  a  just  inference 
that,  according  to  the  general  Roman  cus¬ 
tom — rendering  unto  Ctesar  the  things  that 
are  Caesar’s — and  disdainful  of  what  to 
Him  would  have  been  a  superfluity,  He 
walked  bare-headed,  as  bare-souled,  among 
men  ? 

Sculpture  and  painting  in  the  main  have 
represented  the  ancients  or,  more  exactly, 
the  notable  figures  among  them,  as  un¬ 
covered  ;  but  it  would  be  a  grave  mistake 
to  rely  too  strongly  on  these  representa¬ 
tions  as  embodiments  of  absolute  historic 
truth.  It  is  likely  that  artists  of  yore, 
like  those  of  modern  times,  generally  took 
pains  to  free  their  subjects  as  much  as 
possible  from  conventional  trammels  of 
costume.  Why,  there  used  to  be  a  statue 


114  The  Story  of  The  Hat 

of  Washington  at  the  Capitol,  which  not 
only  imaged  the  father  of  his  country  bare¬ 
headed,  but  bare-backed  and  bare-legged. 
Suppose  our  civilization  should  lapse  into 
chaos,  like  that  of  Greece  and  Home,  as 
must  all  systems  of  government  founded 
on  inequality  or  superstructured  with  in¬ 
justice;  and  suppose  amid  America’s  ruins 
scholars  and  explorers  of  a  new  race, 
delving  with  curiosity,  should  find  only 
that  half-dressed  statue  of  Washington,  all 
others  having  been  mutilated  by  Time  al¬ 
most  beyond  guesswork.  Might  there  not 
be  many  then  who  would  regard  this  as 
affording  proof  that  in  the  morning  twi¬ 
light,  the  mythologic  part  of  American 
history,  the  men  went  about  dressed  or 
undressed  in  Washingtonian  fashion?  In¬ 
deed,  some  modern  writers  on  costume 
with  far  less  evidence  have  gravely  argued 
that  the  Greeks  and  Romans  in  the  heroic 
ages  wore  no  hats  or  caps  and  even 
went  to  battle  unhelmeted.  This,  as  has 
been  seen,  is  a  gross  blunder ;  but  it  does 


The  Story  of  The  Hat  115 

appear  that  at  the  dawn  of  Christianity 
the  hat  was  not,  in  the  heyday  of  the 
Koman  Empire,  a  universal  piece  of  ap¬ 
parel  even  among-  the  gentry.  It  may 
then  be  fairly  inferred  that  in  the  prov¬ 
inces  of  Rome,  unless  they  were  tropical 
or  sub-tropical,  the  hat  did  not  figure  to 
any  large  extent.  In  his  amusing  “  Essay 
on  Hats”  L$igh  Hunt,  who  bore  the  dis¬ 
tinction  of  wearing  about  the  worst  hats 
of  any  man  of  letters  in  his  time,  speaks 
of  a  famous  Spanish  picture  of  the  Virgin 
Mary,  wherein  she  says  to  a  Jewish  gentle¬ 
man  who  has  politely  doffed  his  hat : 
“  Cousin,  be  covered !  ”  But  Kaphael  and 
the  other  great  Masters  who  have  dealt 
with  scriptural  scenes  do  not  represent 
Christ  or  any  of  the  apostles  as  wearing 
hats. 

It  is  highly  interesting  to  compare  the 
costumes  of  different  races,  and  especially 
in  the  matter  of  headgear.  Take  for  ex¬ 
ample  that  figure  of  a  Briton  in  a  hooded 
cloak,  page  twenty-one,  at  the  time  when 


116  The  Story  of  The  Hat 

Caesar  seized  the  “  tight  little,  right  little 
island.”  Such  hooded  cloaks  are  not  un¬ 
common  to-day  among  women  of  cold 
countries  and  I  have  seen  in  the  last  ten 
years  at  least  a  dozen  traveling  Britons 
with  an  abbreviated  costume  somewhat 
similar ;  the  hood  lying  back  on  the  back 
till  rain  should  call  it  into  use.  Nor  was 
it  an  ungraceful  phenomenon  of  reverting 
fancy  in  fashion. 

Here,  again,  is  the  separate  hat  or  cap 
on  the  opposite  page  worn  as  late  as  the 
year  1100  in  many  parts  of  England,  this 
particular  specimen  having  been  copied  by 
Fairholt  from  a  manuscript  of  the  eleventh 
century.  Compare  this  with  the  classic 
helmet  hat*  of  Paris  whose  elopement 
with  Helen  caused  the  fall  of  Troy,  and 
note  the  remarkable  similarity. 

And  on  page  twenty-one  is  a  hat  whose 
replica  as  to  shape  can  be  seen  almost  any 
day  in  the  Orient.  This  was  taken  from 
a  manuscript  of  the  reign  of  Henry  I.  of 

*From  Hope’s  “Costume  of  the  Ancients.” 


The  Story  of  The  Hat  117 

England — and  seems,  as  to  crown,  to  have 
been  woven,  or  plaited,  from  strips  of  cloth, 
stiffened  possibly  by  some  mucilaginous 
preparation.  A  twelfth  century  manu¬ 
script  in  the  Cambridge  Library  gives  us 


I ITH  CENTURY.  PHRYGIAN  CAP  B.  C. 


the  hats  on  page  twety-five  worn  by  the 
middle  classes  on  which  I  have  previously 
commented  as  hints  of  our  derby  and  those 
on  page  sixty-five  are  the  styles  that  apper¬ 
tained  to  the  nobility  or  higher  clergy  of 
the  fifteenth  century. 

The  tall  single  feather  in  one  of  these 
emphasizes  the  idea  :  the  greater  the  man, 
the  taller  his  hat ;  and  it  seems  an  al- 


118  The  Story  of  The  Hat 

most  universal  characteristic  of  the  human 
peacock,*  male  as  well  as  female,  to  stick  a 
feather  in  the  hat,  cap  or  hair.  Our  In¬ 
dian  sticks  it  in  the  hair.  Originally, 
among  savages,  it  may  not  have  been 
adopted  as  a  mere  decoration ;  but  from 
a  superstition  that  the  warrior  thus  ar¬ 
rayed  would  acquire  some  of  the  swiftness 
of  the  bird,  just  as  some  savages,  not 
otherwise  cannibals,  eat  the  hearts  of  their 
bravest  opponents  under  a  fancy  of  thus 
gaining  additional  courage.  Or  else  in  the 
mind  of  primitive  man  the  killing  of  some 
big  bird  was  regarded  as  a  great  achieve¬ 
ment  of  valor  or  of  skill  and  so  the  wear¬ 
ing  of  its  feathers  came  to  denote  an  honor¬ 
able  deed.  Thus  possibly  rose  the  com¬ 
mon  proverb  — one  of  the  oldest  known  to 
man — “  a  feather  in  one’s  cap.” 

*  Mrs.  Charlotte  Perkins  Stetson  has  a  very  amusing 
poem  on  this  topic  which  closes  somewhat  thus : 

Vanity’s  wide  as  the  world  is  wide. 

Feminine  Vanity  ?  O  !  ye  men, 

Look  at  the  peacock  in  his  pride  I 
Is  it  a  hen  ? 


The  Story  of  The  Hat  119 

As  Genin,  a  famous  New  York  hatter 
half  a  century  ago,  wittily  said,  “it  is  a 
great  feather  in  the  cap  of  the  present 
generation  that  it  wears  no  feathers  in 
its  cap.”  Only  women,  some  soldiers,  and 
a  few  barbarians  cling  to  this  antique 
fashion,  and  the  decimation  of  our  beauti¬ 
ful  and  valuable  birds  for  the  purpose  of 
supplying  feminine  vanity  in  this  way 


MIDDLE  OF  I  8th  CENTURY. 

has  of  recent  years  led  to  a  strong  coun¬ 
ter-movement,  or  crusade  against  fuss  and 
feathers,  which  bids  fair  to  be  soon  suc¬ 
cessful.  But  how  tremendous  is  the  force 


120  The  Story  of  The  Hat 

of  fashion — how  slow  the  process  of  evo¬ 
lution — how  long  delayed,  like  “  hope  de¬ 
ferred,”  the  triumph  of  simplicity  in 
taste ! 

Let  us  give  an  historic  illustration  of 
this  in  the  way  of  feminine  headgear.  On 
pages  ninety-seven  and  one  hundred  and 
one  are  two  of  the  horrid  headdresses  worn 
by  ladies  in  the  York  and  Lancaster  period 
of  England  and  elsewhere  in  Europe  pre¬ 
ceding  that  time.  Could  anything  be  more 
monstrous  ?  Against  these  towers  of  van¬ 
ity  the  thunderbolts  of  the  clergy,  the 
shafts  of  the  satirist,  the  slings  and  flings 
of  husbands,  brothers  and  fathers  were  for 
ages  launched  in  vain.  In  face  of  all 
attack  the  women  kept  on  wearing  these 
extinguishers  of  grace  and  belittlers  of 
beauty  till  the  sixteenth  century,  when 
they  reached  a  pitch  of  extravagance,  a 
top-heaviness  of  splendor,  beyond  the 
which  was  no  going.  Then,  indeed,  a  re¬ 
action  set  in  and  feminine  hats  have  never 
since  risen  and  spread  to  such  mad,  Babel- 


The  Story  of  The  Hat  121 

tower  dimensions;  though,  about  1750, 
there  was  a  menace  of  return  to  the  old 
appalling  absurdities.  Even  the  mighty 
Catholic  Church  was  worsted  in  this  battle 
against  Vanity  raised  to  the  summit  of 
Insanity.  The  good  Bishop  of  Paris  in 
the  fourteenth  century — one  of  the  most 
enlightened  of  churchmen — undertook  to 
head  a  crusade  against  these  abominations. 
He  not  only  denounced  them  from  his 
pulpit,  but  he  offered  a  ten  days’  pardon 
of  sins  to  all  who  would  cry  out  and  fight 
against  them.  But  Fashion  foiled  him; 
the  milliners  of  Paris  triumphed  over  him ; 
and  the  muslin  steeple,  on  page  sixty -nine, 
copied  from  the  old  illustrated  French 
Romance  “ Comte  d’ Artois”  still  flourished 
in  air,  when  the  good  Bishop  yielded  up 
his  reformer-breath. 

Proof  of  the  radical  persistence  of  a 
fashion  lies  in  the  fact  that  a  headdress, 
nearly  as  top-heavy  and  absurd  as  the 
one  cited,  continued  to  be  worn  by  the 
peasant  women  of  Normandy  as  late  as 


122  The  Story  of  The  Hat 

1850,  at  which  date,  travelers  aver,  the 
streets  of  Havre  were  spotted  by  them 
and  they  were  not  uncommon  even  in 
Eouen  and  Paris  itself.  But  some  hats  of 
taste  were  worn  in  the  fourteenth  century 
in  France. 

Here  is  one  from  the  romance  just 
quoted,  which  is  rather  pretty  ;  and  espe¬ 
cially  noticeable,  evolutionally,  froln  the 
suggestion  of  likeness  in  shape  to  our 
modern  beaver.  Hats  in  the  same  general 
class  (a  rough  and  ready  grouping  is  all 
that  a  science  of  manufactured  things  can 
safely  attempt)  are  plentiful  in  the  ex¬ 
quisitely  illustrated  manuscripts  of  this 
period.  Two  examples,  from  a  “Chron¬ 
icle  of  England  ”  composed  for  Edward 
IV.,  will  suffice.  They  can  be  found  on 
page  sixty-five  and  are  so  intrinsically  in¬ 
teresting  that  I  have  referred  to  them,  I 
think,  twice  before. 

These  in  the  illustrated  manuscript  are 
depicted  of  a  bright,  staring  yellow  as  a 
whole  with  brilliant  blue  trimmings. 


The  Story  of  The  Hat  123 

What  the  great  Italian  painter,  Favretto, 
would  call  “feste  di  colore  ”  feasts  of 
color ,  they  must  have  been  in  themselves, 
but  think  how  jarring  they  would  be  on  a 
head  of  profuse  blond  hair — and  men  wore 


BLOCKED  HAT  OF  FRANCE  AND  FLANDERS, 
RALEIGH’S  TIME.  FROM  OLD  FRENCH 
ROMANCE  ‘  COMTE  D’ARTOIS.’ 


their  hair  long  in  those  days.  Why  these 
particular  hats  have  been  from  time  im¬ 
memorial  (almost)  assumed  by  artists  as 


124  The  Story  of  The  Hat 

tho  correct  headgear  for  wizards  and 
witches  is  a  mystery.  But  even  now  in 
children’s  picture  books — Mother  Goose 
for  witness — and  on  the  stage  this  odd 
convention  prevails.  The  witches  in  Mac¬ 
beth  are  generally  thus  hatted. 

In  the  same  illuminated  “  Chronicles  of 
England”  are  figures  of  men  wearing  a 
close  round  green  (velvet  or  sarcenet  ?)  cap 
with  long  lappets  falling  over  the  shoulders 
and  down  the  back.  These  bands,  black 
in  color,  and  probably  of  rough  silk  .occa¬ 
sionally  hung  down  to  the  heels.  Perhaps, 
they  were  a  special  class-distinction. 

The  illustration  on  page  ninety-seven  is 
of  a  lady  of  fashion  in  the  last  days  of  the 
House  of  York.  This  curious  headdress 
was  made  of  black  velvet  or  silk,  studded 
with  gold  and  bestuck  with  jewels.  The 
poets  of  that  time  admired  hugely  these 
huge  fantasticalities,  it  seems,  for  their 
writings  abound  in  references  to  such  things. 
Idlenesse,  one  of  the  characters  in  “  The 
Romance  of  the  Rose,”  is  depicted  wearing 


The  Story  of  The  Hat  125 
“  fine  orfraies,”  an  ornament  of  gold,  and 

“  A  chaplet  so  serenely  on 
*  Ne  never  waived  mail  upon, 

And  fair  above  that  chaplet 
A  rose  garland  had  she  set.” 

From  this  it  is  evident  that  not  content 
with  her  tower  of  filagree  the  lady  had  a 
chaplet  of  lace  and  over  and  above  that  a 
wreath  of  roses. 

On  page  one  hundred  and  one  is  a 
specimen  of  the  horned  headdresses  of  the 
dames  in  the  reign  of  Henry  IV.  which 
made  a  lady  look  like  a  kind  of  enhaloed 
and  beatified  cow. 

With  the  coming  to  the  throne  of  Henry 
VII.,  a  monarch  who  set  a  fashion  of  so¬ 
briety  and  economy  of  living,  then  a 
novelty  in  England,  for  a  while  the  hats 
worn  by  gentlemen  were,  as  a  rule,  much 
more  convenient  and  at  the  same  time  more 
truly  picturesque.  But  still  the  feather 
appealed  to  dandies  and  some  of  the  “  men 

*  The  double  negative,  merely  for  purpose  of  emphasis, 
appears  in  Early  English  just  as  in  Greek. 


126  The  Story  of  The  Hat 

about  town  ”  looked  more  like  flaunting 
flamingoes  than  sensible  creatures. 

In  the  following  reign  (Henry  YIII.) 
the  portraits  of  that  bluff  old  Bluebeard’s 
various  wives,  painted  by  the  Dutch  artist, 
Hans  Holbein,  show  as  hideous  hats  or 
headdresses  as  could  easily  be  imagined. 
Anne  Boleyn’s  is  the  only  one  of  the  group 
which  approaches  grace  or  fitness.  In  the 
reign  of  Elizabeth,  to  which  attention  has 
been  previously  directed  for  other  points, 
a  button-cap  for  countrymen  came  into 
vogue  which,  doubtless,  in  its  management 
of  the  flaps  gave  suggestion  for  the  but¬ 
toning  up  of  some  of  the  cocked-hats  of 
the  eighteenth  century.  But,  preceding 
Elizabeth’s  reign  a  queer  little  pan-cake 
looking  cap  (worn  as  late  as  1850  by  the 
Blue  Coat  Boys  of  London)  caught  the 
popular  fancy.  It  was  even  worn  by  the 
young  King,  Edward  VI.,  and  has  been 
known  to  fame  as  the  “  muffin-cap.”  *  A 

*  The  great  merchant,  Sir  Thomas  Gresham,  who 
founded  the  London  Exchange,  always  wore  this  cap. 


The  Story  of  The  Hat  127 

picture  extant  shows  him  in  this  rig,  em¬ 
bellished,  however,  with  a  tassel.  This 
kind  of  cap  is  still  made,  and  worn  in 
England  by  the  very  young  or  at  times  by 


AGE  OF  ELIZABETH.  FLATHEAD  FOR  MAN,  SAME 

CENTURY. 


elders  who  wish  to  appear  jaunty  and 
juvenile. 

The  page  of  illustration,  thirty-three, 
shows  collectively  the  general  fashions  that 
obtained  in  the  sixteenth  century.  They 
are  derived  from  Repton’s  “  Tapestries  ” 
and  while,  perhaps,  exaggerated  in  some 
details  correspond  sufficiently  well  with 


128  The  Story  of  The  Hat 

portraits  and  pictures  of  that  century  to 
be  accepted  as  typical.  Note  how  much 
more  sensible  the  women’s  hats  had  be¬ 
come,  when  the  greatest  of  English  women 
sovereigns,  Queen  Bess,  was  on  the  throne. 
Halcyon  days  for  hatters  one  writer  calls 
this  reign,  and  intimates  that  nobles  and 
men  of  fashion  purchased  a  new  hat  every 
other  day.  These  were  chiefly  made  of 
velvet,  probably  of  beaver  for  the  nobles 
and  a  little  later  still  felt*  rose  in  estima¬ 
tion  even  for  fine  hats. 

In  the  reign  of  James  I.  the  felt-makers 
of  London  secured  an  act  of  incorporation. 
The  Puritan  hat,  severe  and  sugar-loafish, 
has  already  been  considered,  but  on  page 
seventy-nine  is  one  from  a  full-length  por¬ 
trait  of  Robert  Devereux,  Earl  of  Essex 
“  Lord  General  of  the  Army.”  The  feather 
presumably  is  on  account  of  his  military 

*  Stowe  says  that  felt  was  made  in  England  during  the 
reign  of  Henry  VIII.  by  Dutchmen  and  Spaniards.  It 
was  worn  in  England  by  Edward  III.,  according  to 
Green’s  History  and  Froissart’s  Chronicle ;  but,  doubtless 
this  was  the  exception,  not  the  rule. 


The  Story  of  The  Hat  129 

rank:  otherwise  the  hat  is  Puritan,  but 
doubtless  of  beaver. 

When  Charles  II.  regained  his  throne, 
one  of  the  first  “  reforms  ”  he  and  his  dis¬ 
solute  gang  instituted  was  the  cutting 
down  of  the  “steeple-crown”  hats,  as  they 
were  nicknamed,  and  the  smothering  of 


WHEN  CHARLES  II.  WAS  KING. 


the  brims  with  plumes  once  more.  The 
women  in  that  reign  of  riot  and  ribaldry 
wore  hats  almost  exactly  like  those  of 
their  lords.  This  was  a  French  taste 
which  Charles  endeavored  to  impart  to 
his  people,  even  going  so  far  as  to  decree 


130  The  Story  of  The  Hat 

it  in  Council  in  1664.  In  1660  Louis  XIV., 
according  to  a  print  representing  a  meet¬ 
ing  between  his  Magnificence  and  Philip 
IV.,  of  Spain,  held  in  hand  the  kind  of 
hat — an  arm-hat  doubtless — depicted  on 
page  fifty-three. 

The  cocked -hat  has  been  discussed  pretty 
fully,  but  one  interesting  thing  remains  to 
be  told  of  it.  Sign  and  symbol  of  aris¬ 
tocracy,  it  was  particularly  antagonized 
by  the  French  Revolution,  though  it  was 
even  then  a  decaying  fashion.  But  Em¬ 
peror  Paul  of  Russia,  because  French  Re¬ 
publicans  hated  it,  conceived  almost  an 
adoration  for  it  and  forbade  his  subjects 
to  wear  a  round  hat  under  penalty  first  of 
the  knout  and  second  of  a  visit  to  Siberia. 

Thus,  again,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Neth¬ 
erlands  which,  when  Spain’s  yoke  was 
thrown  off,  assumed  a  certain  kind  of  hat 
as  the  token  of  freedom  and  made  it  a 
national  emblem,  the  sort  of  hat  in  the 
last  century  favored  by  France  was  re¬ 
garded  as  the  horrible  mark  of  Republican 


The  Story  of  The  Hat  131 

institutions.  Still,  though  the  cocked-hat 
with  its  gold  or  silver  lace,  its  buckles  and 
rosettes,  was  nearing  its  fall  fjjom  all  heads 
save  those  of  soldiers  and  flunkeys  toward 
the  close  of  the  last  century,  and  a  breeze 
of  purer,  simpler  taste  was  beginning  to 
blow  from  France  over  England,  some 
ladies  of  fashion  made  a  desperate  en¬ 
deavor  and  for  a  few  years  succeeded  in 
rendering  feminine  hats  almost  as  ridicu¬ 
lously  heavy,  high  and  cumbrous  as  they 
had  ever  been. 

The  author  of  the  New  Bath  Guide  in 
1776  has  this  humorous  description  and 
warning  to  a  young  lady  that,  if  her  hay¬ 
cock  of  a  hat  catches  fire  from  some  of  the 
candles  or  flambeaux  in  the  Bath  Assembly 
Booms,  a  conflagration  of  Cupids  may  re¬ 
sult. 

A  cap  like  a  hat 
(Which  was  once  a  cravat) 

Part  gracefully  platted  and  pinned  is ; 

Part,  stuck  upon  gauze, 

Resembles  macaws 
And  all  the  fine  birds  of  the  Indies. 


132  The  Story  of  The  Hat 

But  above  all  the  rest 
A  bold  Amazon’s  crest 
Waves  nodding  from  shoulder  to  shoulder. 

At  once  to  surprise 
Ana  to  ravish  all  eyes  ; 

To  frighten  and  charm  the  beholder. 

In  short,  head  and  feather, 

And  wig  altogether, 

With  wonder  and  joy  would  delight  ye ; 

Like  the  picture  I’ve  seen 
Of  th’  adorable  queen 
Of  the  beautiful,  blest  Otaheite. 

Yet  Miss  at  the  rooms 
Must  beware  of  her  plumes, 

For  if  Vulcan*  her  feather  embraces, 

Like  poor  Lady  Laycock, 

She’ll  burn  like  a  haycock  — 

And  roast  all  the  Loves  and  the  Graces. 

Hat-making  in  America  was  a  branch  of 
industry  which  early  attracted  the  atten¬ 
tion  of  the  settlers  in  colonial  days  and 
provoked  the  jealousy  of  the  English 
makers  which  resulted  in  several  abortive 
attempts  on  their  part  to  procure  Parlia¬ 
mentary  interference  and  check  the 

*God  of  Forge  and  Fire,  put  by  a  figure  of  speech  com¬ 
mon  in  the  last  century  for  fire  itself. 


134  The  Story  of  The  Hat 

growth  of  the  industry.  The  extent  to 
which  the  stepmother  country  wished  to 
carry  this  petty  tyranny  of  prevention 
seems  hardly  believable  nowadays,  when 
one  sees  how  England  encourages  in  all 
her  colonial  possessions  the  manufacture 
of  any  and  every  thing.  Even  the  great 
Lord  Chatham,  who  nobly  opposed  the 
final  physical  oppression  of  the  colonies  at 
the  time  of  the  Revolution,  had  earlier 
declared  that  Americans  should  not  be 
permitted  to  manufacture  “the  nail  to  a 
horseshoe.”  So  intense  was  the  then 
narrow  view  of  colonial  rights. 

After  the  achievement  of  our  Independ¬ 
ence  we  were  still  regarded  as  a  set  of 
crude  barbarians  not  really  capable  of 
doing  much  fine  hat-work,  or  head-work, 
though  it  was  felt  by  England  that  we 
would  fight  “  at  the  drop  of  the  hat,”  and 
this  gained  for  us  a  grudged  respect.  Not 
long  after  the  war  of  1812  in  which  we 
were  compelled  to  thrash  the  Britons  into 
still  greater  respect  and  keep  them  from 


The  Story  of  The  Hat  135 

stealing  our  sailors  on  the  high  seas,  manu¬ 
facturing  began  to  “  look  up  ”  somewhat 
in  the  northern  part  of  this  country 
and  among  others  the  business  of  hat¬ 
making  reared  its  head  proudly.  J  ust 
as  there  were  kings  before  Agamemnon, 
there  were  good  hatters  in  the  United 
States  before  those  who  are  flourishing 
now  and  some  of  the  hats  made  in  General 
Jackson’s  glorious  day,  though  not  re¬ 
markable  for  beauty,  perhaps,  were  mar¬ 
vels  of  fine  workmanship.  Old  Hickory, 
who  in  youth  had  worn  a  cocked-hat, 
sensibly  lent  the  light  of  his  countenance 
and  the  vast  force  of  his  example  to  the 
beaver  or  chimney-pot,  as  it  was  disre¬ 
spectfully  called,  and  that,  with  the  south¬ 
ern  slouch,  held  sway.  Toward  the  middle 
of  this  century  American  hats  began  to  be 
known  in  Europe  for  the  excellence  of 
their  make.  A  few  years  before  an  impu¬ 
dent  English  critic  had  sneeringly  asked  : 
“  Who  reads  an  American  book  ?  ”  and 
probably  the  contemptuous  question  “  Who 


136  The  Story  of  The  Hat 

wears  an  American  hat  ?  ”  may  have  been 
asked  among  the  traders.  We  have 
changed  all  that. 

Hitherto  we  have  been  considering 
chiefly  the  hats  made  of  felt  or  pelt ;  but 
the  development  of  the  straw  hat  is  of 
equal  interest.  Straw  for  many  centuries 
has  been  used  in  tropical  countries  for  the 
production  of  head-coverings  and  in  south¬ 
ern  Italy  it  was  plaited  with  rare  skill, 
often  in  divers  colors,  about  three  centuries 
ago.  Tuscany  was  the  principal  seat  of 
this  industry  and  the  city  of  Leghorn  was 
particularly  noted  for  the  beauty  of  its 
work  in  straw.  To  this  day  the  Leghorn 
hat  survives.  These  art-works  of  the  early 
Italian  Masters  were  made  from  a  short 
and  small  wheat  grown  for  this  purpose 
on  the  Arno  and  the  Italian  hat  stole  its 
way  into  favor,  at  last,  all  over  Europe. 
Only  in  the  last  century,  however,  did  it 
begin  to  triumph  over  the  insular  prejudice 
and  congenital  slowness  of  the  English 
race  ;  but  once  having  gained  a  foothold — 


The  Story  of  The  Hat  137 

or  a  headhold — there,  the  straw-hat  in¬ 
dustry  began  to  flourish  in  Great  Britain. 
At  first  the  Italian  straw  was  imported 
and  the  Italian  method  of  plaiting  followed 
in  which  thirteen  unsplit  straws  were 
used,  seven  turned  to  one  side  and  six  to 
the  other.  Thus  a  flat,  broad  plait  is  pro¬ 
duced  which  can  be  continued  to  anv  de- 

« j 

sired  length.  This,  coiled  up  in  large  circu¬ 
lar  plats,  is  threaded  loosely  together  and 
in  that  shape  is  ready  for  exportation. 
But  the  English  before  long  began  to  em¬ 
ploy  their  own  grasses  for  the  same  pur¬ 
pose  and  a  wheat  which  grew  on  the 
chalky  soil  of  Dunstable  was  discovered  to 
be  so  fine  that  Dunstable  hats  became 
famous.  An  extension  of  this  industry 
ensued  in  the  counties  of  Bedford,  Hert¬ 
ford,  and  Buckingham  particularly,  and  by 
the  middle  of  this  century  over  fifty 
thousand  persons  were  there  engaged  in 
straw  hat-making  with  a  yearly  return  of 
nearly  five  million  dollars. 

The  old  Italian  method  of  course,  was 


138  The  Story  of  The  Hat 

entirely  superseded.  By  the  new  process 
the  best  and  whitest  straws  cut  into  equal 
lengths  were  subjected  to  fumes  of  burning 
sulphur,  which  bleached  them  to  uniform 
tint  and  then  each  one  was  divided  into 
several  strips  by  a  wire  with  several 
cutting  edges  passed  up  through  the 
straw.  Then  the  strips,  after  being  soft¬ 
ened  in  water,  were  ready  for  plaiting  and 
as  fast  as  the  plait  was  made  they  flattened 
it  by  pressure  between  wooden  rollers. 
Next,  in  order  to  form  the  hat,  they  wound 
it  spirally  over  a  block,  overlapping  the 
edges  and  sewing  the  coils  together. 

It  is  noticeable,  indeed  I  have  often 
heard  it  remarked  by  persons  not  particu¬ 
larly  interested  in  the  hat-business,  how 
from  year  to  year  the  straw  hat  seems  to 
gain  a  fineness  of  finish  in  the  point  of 
manufacture  and  in  attractiveness  of  gen¬ 
eral  appearance  on  the  heads  of  wearers. 
This  is  really  true  likewise  in  regard  to 
other  hats,  but  is  not  quite  so  self-evident. 
It  stands  to  reason  that  it  should  be  thus, 


The  Story  of  The  Hat  130 

particularly  in  a  country  like  our  own,, 
where  the  inventive  faculty  of  the  people  is 
very  fertile  and  where  competition  between 
makers  is  very  keen  ;  for  as  }ret  there  is  no 
Hat-Trust  and  little  likelihood  of  such  a 
thing  for  many  years  to  come. 

On  the  other  hand,  while  the  American 


THE  COLLEGE  MORTAR-BOARD, 
WORN  NOW  BY  BOTH  SEXES. 


people  make  and  in  large  numbers  'wear 
the  very  best  hats  in  the  world,  it  must  be 
admitted  that  a  vast  amount  of  worthless 
hats  appears  also  to  be  bought  by  the  mul¬ 
titude.  Mere  cheapness,  of  course,  always 
makes  a  potent  appeal  to  average  human 


140  The  Story  of  the  Hat 

nature.  Men,  even  when  fairly  well-to-do 
and  able  to  afford  the  best — which  is  the 
cheapest  in  the  end — are  frequently 
tempted  into  purchasing  a  hat  which  will 
not  hold  its  form,  color  or  freshness  thirty 
days ;  while  by  paying  twice  as  much  they 
could  get  a  first-rate  article  which  with 
fair  care  would  last  for  months:  in  fact, 
many  first-rate  hats  last  and  look  well 
more  than  one  season. 

Several  men  about  town  make  a  practice 
of  following  substantially  the  example  set 
by  Count  d’  Orsay  in  the  early  part  of  this 
century :  that  is,  they  lay  in  a  supply  of  a 
variety  of  styles  and  they  never  wear  any 
hat  more  than  a  fortnight  consecutively. 
Thus  their  hats  always  look  fresh  and  by 
replenishing  from  time  to  time  with  some 
new  style  in  the  most  stylish  kind  they 
are  constantly  up  with  the  fashions.  It 
has  been  said  on  good  authority  that  very 
good  razors  will  often  sharpen  themselves, 
if  after  considerable  use  they  are  laid  away 
to  rest.  Whether  this  is  a  fact  or  not  I 


The  Story  of  The  Hat  141 

cannot  say  from  personal  experience,  but 
I  am  convinced  that  a  somewhat  similar 
phenomenon  is  true  as  regards  hats.  Like 
human  beings  they  seem  to  need  a  day 
off,  now  and  then  ;  and  to  keep  several 
and  give  them  all  vacations  from  active 
service  tends  to  a  real  economy  as  well  as 
to  a  continuous  elegance  in  one’s  personal 
appearance. 

I  have  now  arrived  nearly  at  the  com¬ 
pletion  of  the  pleasant  task  I  set  myself 
last  summer  in  the  composition  of  this 
little  book ;  and  I  trust  it  will  not  be 
deemed  egotistical  or  out  of  place,  if  I  say 
a  few  words,  in  closing,  about  its  plan  and 
purpose.  My  aim  was  not  to  produce  a 
vade  mecum  of  present  fashions  or  to  put 
anything  before  the  public  eye  that  should 
savor  in  the  least  of  an  advertisement  of 
my  business  or  of  myself  as  a  manufacturer 
and  expert. 

The  vast  and  varied  press  of  the  country 
presents  legitimate  channels  for  advertising 
a  man’s  goods  and  a  man’s  goods,  if  they  be 


142  The  Story  of  The  Hat 

good  goods,  must  also  in  the  long  run  adver¬ 
tise  themselves.  I  believe  heartily  in  using 
the  great  newspaper  channels  of  communi¬ 
cating  with  the  public,  even  after  one’s 
business  has  grown  to  great  size,  and  I 
think  nearly  all  great  merchants  will  sub¬ 
scribe  to  this  opinion.  So  I  have  refrained 
from  putting  anything  in  this  book  which 
might  appear  to  lead  a  reader  to  the  con¬ 
viction  that  a  Ivnox  hat  is  the  summum 
bonmn,  the  final  flower  of  taste,  the  per¬ 
fect  evolution  of  utility,  beauty  and  fitness 
in  this  important  branch  of  human  in¬ 
dustry. 

I  have  even  avoided  presenting  any  ex¬ 
amples  of  modern  masculine  styles  in  the 
illustrations  lest  it  should  be  fancied  that 
I  took  them  from  my  stock  to  impress  by 
suggestion  the  public.  The  few  specimens 
of  modern  feminine  hats  with  which  I 
have  sought  to  embellish  these  closing 
pages  were  chosen  by  me  in  the  same  way, 
not  from  hats  I  make,  but  from  foreign 
makes  which  I  handle  to  some  extent  for 


The  Story  of  The  Hat  143 

some  customers  whose  fancy  leads  them  to 
desire  occasionally  that  which  bears  the 
mark  of  Paris  or  London  in  preference  to 
that  frequently  far  superior  article  made 


SOMETHING  VERY  MODERN  IN  FEMININE  HEADGEAR. 

in  America  and  made  by  more  than  one 
hatter  of  real  note  and  authority. 

I  look  forward  to  the  day  when  the 
words,  “  Made  in  America,”  will  not,  like 
the  stamp  “Made  in  Germany”  on  any 
article,  carry  a  suggestion  of  mere  cheap¬ 
ness,  but  an  absolute  conviction  that  the 
article,  whether  a  hat,  a  shoe,  or  a  pen,  is 


144  The  Story  of  The  Hat 

of  immensely  superior  quality,  resulting 
from  a  combination  of  the  most  highly 
skilled  and  best-paid  labor  with  the 
choicest  taste,  and  commanding  every¬ 
where  and  always,  as  it  should,  a  just 
price :  in  fine,  every  American  product 
should  be  a  victory  of  true  values. 

Having  stated  thus  my  general  purpose, 
let  me  give  a  brief  outline  of  the  plan  of 
this  book.  I  have  sought  to  group  in  a 
form  easy  to  grasp  the  essential  details  of 
the  development  of  this  industry  ;  to  show 
how,  with  certain  gaps  (which  a  future 
historian  may  be  able  to  fill  up  with  ma¬ 
terials  not  yet  accessible,  but  possibly  dis¬ 
coverable)  there  has  been  a  steady  evolu¬ 
tion  toward  the  present  leading  styles 
among  civilized  men ;  and  how  even  some 
extravagant  fashions  which  threatened,  by 
dint  of  long  reign,  to  become  fixed,  have 
been  really  but  exceptional  or  transitional 
— mere  birds  of  passage.  By  copious  ad¬ 
mixture  of  anecdote  derived  from  many 
sources  I  have  tried  to  make  this  topic 


GOLFING  HAT  AND  CAPE,  IMPORTED. 


145 


146  The  Story  of  The  Hat 

entertaining  to  the  general  reader  as  well 
as  to  members  of  my  own  craft.  Whether 
I  have  succeeded  or  not  is  for  the  public 
and  the  critics  to  say. 

In  conclusion,  it  is  only  proper  to  ac¬ 
knowledge  my  large  indebtedness,  not  only 
to  other  men’s  casual  writings  on  this 
theme,  but  to  several  literary  gentlemen, 
Messrs.  John  B.  Carlton,  Charles  Frederic 
Stansbury  and  George  Bell,  Esquire,  of 
The  New  York  Bar  and  the  Bell  Publish¬ 
ing  Company,  for  many  corrections  in  the 
text  and  some  re-arrangements  of  the  orig¬ 
inal  matter. 

If  this  little  book  is  found  instructive 
and  entertaining,  as  I  hope  it  will  be,  I 
shall  be  tempted  to  compose  another  deal¬ 
ing  with  all  the  interesting  details  of  the 
art  of  hat-manufacturing  as  practiced  by 
other  hatters  and  myself,  with  illustrations 
from  life  of  the  work-women  and  work¬ 
men  in  the  greatest  hat-factory  of  the 
world  and  of  others  where  special  branches 
of  the  industry  are  flourishing ;  and  bear- 


The  Story  of  The  Hat  147 

ing  fruit  of  good  wages  for  thousands  of 
people. 

In  this  hope  and  ambition  I  now  dedi¬ 
cate  this  book  to  the  Hatters  of  the  United 
States,  wishing  that  the  day  may  soon  ar¬ 
rive,  when  they  shall  “  hat  ”  the  world — 
surely,  no  unreasonable  expectation,  since 
America  already  heads  it. 

E.  M.  K. 


